Transcript

Good evening. My name is Councillor Bodhul Chowdhury. I will be chairing the meeting tonight on Housing and Regeneration Scrutiny Subcommittee. This meeting has been held in person with the Housing and Regeneration Committee, members along with key participants present in the room and joining remotely. Only the Subcommittee members present in the room can only vote if there is an item that needs to be voted on. Should a technical error occur that prevents remote attendees from participating, I will decide if and how the meeting should proceed after speaking to the officers. This meeting has been filmed for the Council's website for public viewing. Those participating in the meeting will be included in the footage. I will remind members at the meeting to only speak on my directions and to engage and speak clearly into their microphones to ensure that their contributions can be properly recorded. Attendees who are joining us online must use their microphones and must turn off when they are not speaking. Thank you. Can we all ensure our mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off if it is possible? With the exception of Scrutiny members, only turn on your video cameras when speaking to save bandwidth. Scrutiny members are encouraged to keep video cameras turned on. If members and officers joining remotely wish to speak, please use the raise hand function. Please do not use the remote meeting chart function as it will not be seen by those of us in the physical meeting. We will move on to apologies for absence. Justina? No, Chair, I have not received any apologies. Karen? Yes, Councillor Ahmed wishes to give his apologies. He is on annual leave and Andrea Baker is on leave as well. And Yvonne Ara Smith, the Chief Exec of East End Homes, just to provide an item. Thank you. Thank you, Karen. Justina, you have got them. Okay, we will move on now. Can members introduce yourself followed by any declarations that you have? And can I remind members that a guidance note on declaration of interest is included on page 7 and 8 of the agenda pack. So if you are in any doubt, please refer to this guidance note. Councillor? Thank you, Chair. Councillor Amin Rahman, Bethlehem West. Thank you. Nothing to declare. I am Susannah. I am the Tower Hamlets leaseholder. But other than that, nothing to declare. I am Mahbub and I am Tenant Kogti. Councillor Ahmad Al-Kabir, Bethlehem East. No DPI, Chair. Thank you. Thank you to you all. Now we will move on to our agenda. Minutes of the previous meeting. Approved the minutes of the previous meeting. Do members have any comments to make? Thank you. Yes, I approve the minutes. However, with one change, I asked the question of the tenant's voice at the last meeting. So referring to page 13 under resident engagement, I asked that question at the last meeting asking, how does the tenant voice reach out to other residents? You know, and that's not a criticism. I mean, with all due respect, you're volunteering your time and you just, residents are just very privileged to have people like yourselves in the tenant's voice volunteering your time. I think it was in relation to another question by Mubab about tenants and residents association, of which some of us are also volunteering our time. There is already a structure in place where we are able to reach out to the residents living on our estate. And with the tenant's voice now being set up, individual residents, which is great, because you are able to then approach individual residents. But my question then was how, because they are being newly formed, how does the tenant's voice reach out to all the other residents? Because that is the remit where they reach to every single resident as wide as they can. So that was a question that wasn't minuted here. And I would like, maybe as a follow up, for someone to answer that. Yeah. Just bear with me. I think David put his hands up. David, over to you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Suzanne. I think it's a really important question that you raised. So I'm going to ask Darren, who's on the call to come in, because he's involved in running the tenant voice group. But I suppose just to, not to go against the premise of your question, but I think some of the responsibility to do that is actually our responsibility as officers in the council to take what's discussed at the tenant voice panel and communicate it more broadly with members, including the impact that it's having. And so that would include through other mechanisms like East End Homes or our website, or other sort of community days that we do to kind of feedback the outcome of the discussions that are happening at our tenant's voice. But Darren, are you able to come in around the way that we work with members of that group to do what Suzanne is suggesting? Thanks, David. Yes. And yes, completely agree with the sentiment of the question. And as David said, we are looking at how we engage a much broader representation of residents through. We're going to be doing a lot of policy consultations over the next 12 months, and that will be promoted in our East End. And there's going to be online but also postal surveys going out to involve broader representation of residents beyond just the tenant voice panel. And also, we are still recruiting members for the tenant voice. So that's just another call out. But we are looking at ways we can involve and how we get feedback through the TRA networks and other resident panels as well. And we've got something that we're going to be doing in the summer, which is going to be a mass engagement sort of door knocking out on estates. And part of that will be around engaging with residents around how to get involved and give give their views to sort of help us shape services. Thank you. But I guess, Darren, you do know that the TRA are not allowed, members of the TRA are not allowed to join Tenants Voice. And I think it was following up from Mubab's question at that same meeting. Yes. So I think just for yourself, Darren, and also for David, just a bit of history background. As Karen would know, prior to the council stop being in house, we had an hour more called timeless homes. I was one of the board members at that time. And then when there was a discussion of coming back in house, we had a board which included residents who are actively part of the board to scrutinise and hold the performance to account. When it came back in house, there was a discussion of how do we then get residents, tenants and leaseholders to then scrutinise and hold the council's stock. And one of the ways that was proposed was to hold a Tenants Voice panel, however we want to call it. Now, when that was formed, one of the things that was done was the criteria was to exclude anyone who was part of a TRA to also be on the Tenants Voice panel. So, for example, I was a TRA member, but as well as on the board for timeless homes. And then when a Tenants Voice was created, it was decided to exclude TRA members. Now that we have an issue where we have three vacancies on the Tenants Voice panel, I think the question is, does it still make sense to exclude TRAs, people who are active on their stays, who are aware of housing issues, who are volunteering their time and to actively exclude them. So that's the specific question. Of course, we can talk about a broader question around how do we engage residents in the summer and so on. And that's a separate, I think, Darren, it's a separate answer or a separate question. We are asking specifically on Tenants Voice and why TRA members were excluded and how can we include them as part of this process. David? Yeah, I think I understand the point that you're making and we'll take it away and explore it and come back with an answer as to, particularly given the vacancy that you've mentioned. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I suppose just to say, we really value the contributions that all residents are prepared to either be TRA chairs to sit on this committee or to be part of Tenant Voice make. And we want all residents to be involved to the maximum that they're willing to be involved. So let us take this away and maybe come back with an answer on the point. But I would just make one other point, which is that the Tenant Voice, our intention is for the Tenant Voice panel and the outcomes to bring regular reports here and also to our housing cabinet subcommittee, which is another way in which I think just to address Susanna's point, the outputs of that group will be fed in more widely, including to other residents such as yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. First of all, apologies. I couldn't join in person due to the health issues. I just, Darren said that there's, you know, for Tenant Voice panel, there's a recruitment, I would like to know what's the process and how that's been advertised, or if someone willing to join the panel, what they need to do. Number one, and I got, I need a clarification, which is on the page, I think 17, the scrutiny action log. It says that a written request made to the mayor to initiate a formal request to meet with the Minister for Housing and the Regulator for Social Housing and MPs to investigate THCH performance. So, have we received a reply from the mayor? Sorry, Councillor. We will deal with the action log later. Okay. So, we are coming on to that shortly. Okay. Thank you. Suzanne, are you happy with the response from the offices? Mahbub? Yes, I am. So, we will move on. Yeah, but I think, sorry, Councillor. Councillor, are you still there? Do you have anything else to add? I think he asked one question on tenants' voice about recruitment. Do you want me to repeat? Sorry, yeah. Sorry, Councillor. Yes, I can answer that question. So, it is normally advertised in RE's tenant homes and there is a recruitment process. I can share more details with you and the panel as part of this, you know, of the PAC. So, everyone's got information on that. We have a certain quota. So, many tenants, leaseholders, then sub-tenants. I believe at the minute the vacancies are around leaseholder and the sub-tenant, a sub-occupant of a leaseholder. But I can provide that information for the panel so everybody's got it and you can put people forward through the application process and then the team then go through the process with the applicant. Okay. Councillor, are you happy with that? Yes. Thank you. Now we will move on to the action log which will be reviewed. And I would like to welcome Paul Burgess, Strategy Policy Officer, who provides support to this committee to provide an update and I will have a few things to add on to that. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to say that, obviously, the action log was circulated with the minutes. So, I will assume that the committee are going to take the responses that are provided here as read. The only thing that I wanted to update the committee on is that since the papers were published, item three on page one about void properties, a response has been circulated to all members regarding that. And on page two, there was the third item down there about the ASB eviction process. I've been advised that officers will be providing a briefing by the end of the month. So, those are the only updates I've had since the papers were published. But I'm happy now to take any questions that there might be. Any questions from anyone? So, maybe Councillor Chowdhury will want to ask his question now. Councillor, did you want to ask that question you asked earlier about… Yes. Thank you, Chair. So, the question was about a written request made to the Mayor, we know, on 13th of May 2024. And the reply said officers continue to engage with the Mayor's office on THCH performance. The committee will continue to be updated. The committee will continue to be updated. I want a bit of clarification on this. So, what is the outcome of the letter sent to the Mayor's office? Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Councillor. So, the outcome currently is that because THCH, I believe, are in a merger process with or, you know, things are developing there, that perhaps some of the officers will want to come in if there's anything, but that they're continuing to see that's an evolving situation. So, they want to see where THCH stand after, you know, in a short time. And then, whether they'll be taking it from there. But I can certainly ask, if there are no officers here that can provide an update, I can go back to the officers that are assigned to it in the action log to ask for further details, if you would like. Sorry, can I? Please. David, do you want to come in on that? I just wanted to confirm that THCH have now formally become part of Hyde Community Housing. So, that merger has now happened. So, I suppose that's just an update to give to the committee. Thank you, David. I had that noted here. It's the same thing I was going to say, but you've said it beforehand. Because THCH has merged with the Hyde group. So, we will get some feedback from them. So, let's see how the merger carries on. Sorry, Councillor. Please, thank you. Yeah, I would have thought that's a bit pointless, to be honest, for the Mayor to go and have a meeting with them, to be honest with you. Because, obviously, they've merged. Let them deal with it now. Just a quick question, David, if it's okay. Chair, if it's okay. What are they going to be called? THCH? Or are they going to be called Hyde Community? So, I think they will just be called part of the Hyde group, from what I understand. So, that's my understanding is the Hyde group is like the parent group. They are a number of smaller. So, I think it retains the name, Tower Hamlets Community Housing. But, it's part of the Hyde group, is my understanding. I think Shalin's just come in. Maybe he's got some more information. Shalin is one. All right. Yes. Do you want to ask your question, please? Yeah, no. I was just going to say, in terms of THCH retaining their brand, that is kind of potentially what they're planning to do, because they want to retain that local feel with residents. But, they do have like a comms plan in place, kind of going forward now that the merger has finalised. So, obviously, I'm actually due to meet with one of the directors in the next week or so, to kind of get a bit more information as to what's going to happen going forward. So, I'll try and keep everyone updated in due course. Yes. I'll go to Mahbub first. Thank you. Yes. So, I think, Chair, you know, previously we had THCH come in due to huge performance issues. And, we had a number of residents who come in and talk about their experience of underperformance and lack of service delivery and lack of engagement from THCH. And, I guess, now that this merger has taken place with HYDE, residents and, of course, members would be actively interested in the performance and the engagement of HYDE with the local residents. And, I think, you know, can we ask or are in a position for HYDE group to lay out in terms of how they will address their areas of underperformance, how they will engage with residents on service delivery? Is that something that we can request to HYDE to come in future scrutiny meetings and present here? Just before, Karen, I'll come back to you. I remember the last meeting we had. We had a lot of residents coming to that meeting. So, it was very good. And, afterward, I did speak to them. So, they were very happy in that sense. So, obviously, the merger has taken place now and we will see the outcome of it. Karen, did you want to come in on that? Well, I mean, the committee has, in the past, invited registered providers to Columbus. So, I think, Clarion have been here in one housing group. So, perhaps, maybe, as part of your work program, you could consider inviting the HYDE group to come along and explain what their plans are for the Housing Association going forward. Especially, as residents are concerned and came and presented here. And, of course, previously, one of the responses that THCH had given was, you know, we were in talks of merger and we can't really disclose much and so on. And, now that the merger has taken place, we need now, like, a concrete plan from them. Yes, Paul, you want to add something? Thank you. It might be, it's quite pertinent that, later on today, we're talking about the final feedback of the performance report that we did from last year's scrutiny challenge session on RP performance. But, part of that was that there was an agreement that housing providers, one or two, would be invited every year. So, possibly, if the scrutiny committee is of that mind, that HYDE could be the group that's invited in next year to give an update on where they stand. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Paul. Now, we will move on to our first item tonight. Chair, I had a question. Yes, Councillor, carry on. You know, the purpose of this scrutiny committee is not to, is to scrutinise the executives and it's not to praise. So, from that, I would say, you know, it's been said, it's no point for the mayor to go to them. But, when the question was sent, the request was sent to the mayor, it was last year. And, I believe the merger only happened very recently. So, that means, our request was, you know, this committee, this scrutiny committee's request was sitting with the mayors for nearly a year and nothing been done. I think that's why I wanted to, I want you to make a note. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. It will be noted. Thank you. We will move on to our next item for this evening, social landlord review, performance review for quarter three. So, with this brief introduction, I would like to welcome Karen Swift, Director of Housing, and someone replacing Andrea Baker, your name, Yvonne, is it? I would like to introduce the item and progress that you have made. You have five minutes to do so. Thank you. So, thank you, Chair. In fact, I'm going to ask Mubin to present the report. He did that last time and did a brilliant job on it. So, I'm going to ask him to introduce the report and Yvonne and I can answer any questions from the committee. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. This is the report for quarter three, registered provided performance. In this version of the report, we've included an extra graph on page 25, showing how much stock each RP has in the borough. And just to note that the operating context for larger RPs should be taken into consideration when comparing performance between RPs. Onto the data itself, four RPs have reported a non-decency rate of 0%. Tower Hamlets Council had the highest non-decency rate at 23.15%. However, this is an improvement from last quarter where they reported a non-decency rate of 26.16%. The council has a stretch target of 18% for the end of 2526, the year 2526, and will continue to be an outlier for this metric until two programmes are to be complete, which is the stock condition programme and the capital investment programme. For emergency repairs, all RPs have reported over 70% of emergency repairs were completed on time. Spitterfields, Harker, Providence Row completed 90% of both emergency and non-emergency repairs on time. For safety checks, Spitterfields and L&Q reported 100% on gas safety checks as being complete. Only Swan and Poplar Harker had a compliance rate of below 99%. Swan had a rate of 98.9% and Harker had a rate of 94.4%. Six RPs reported 100% of their fire safety checks as being complete. Only Clarion had a compliance rate of under 99% at 98.58%. Six RPs had a 100% compliance rate for asbestos safety checks. Only Tower Hamlets Council and Clarion had a compliance rate of under 99% at 94.08% and 92.08% respectively. Four RPs had a 100% compliance rate for water safety checks. Clarion had a compliance rate of under 90% at 81.95%. Four RPs had a 100% compliance rate for lift safety checks and all RPs reported a compliance rate of above 93%. For complaints, five RPs reported that all complaints received in quarter three were responded to within the complaints handling code timescale. Tower Hamlets Council had the lowest rate of complaints responded to on time. But this figure incorporates leaseholder complaints as well as tenanted ones. For relet times, all RPs had an average relet time of under 100 days for standard relets. And six RPs had a relet time of under 100 days for major works. LNQ reported the longest average relet time for both standard relets and major works. In LNQ, in quarter two, sorry, LNQ had an average relet time of 892 days for major work relets. And this is significantly low in this quarter. For vacant units, Providence Row and Swan reported zero vacant units unavailable for letting at the end of quarter three. And Peabody and East End Homes reported the highest number of vacant units available for letting at the end of quarter three. Thank you very much. Thank you, Movin. Karen, did you want to add anything to this? Just to emphasise what Movin did at the very beginning, which was just to refer to the first two slides, which actually provide some useful context, which is the difference in the stock figures. So, for example, if you went to the last slide in the pack, which talks about the relets and vacant units, every housing association has a number of vacant units. But when you look at the percentage of the stock that they have, it just puts the relets, the vacant units into perspective. So, I think the trend for Movin to do more of that is really useful, just to use percentage as well as the volumes as well. Yes, Mahmoud, your question, please. Thank you. So, yeah, thank you for the report, Movin. A few things. Number one, page 25, inaccuracy on that. So, which says stock figures in Tarrhamnets, the council stock is 11,621. So, previously I was on the board and the council stock is about 22,000. So, is that just tenants or is that leaseholders? So, if that is, then that needs to be clarified that there is specifically tenants. Yeah, yes, I think, you know, that's what number one I would say. And I think either we caveat that in the report and then in other figures as well, because otherwise it can be seen as inaccurate. The second thing I would say is, in terms of decent homes, I think it'd be good to kind of include what the definition of decent homes is, because I think if we come and speak to members who might not have any background in housing and they might not know what decent homes includes, or it does include kitchen and bathrooms, for example, you know. So, I think it's important to kind of include that too for members. The other thing that I would kind of recommend is, so the report has kind of a few different elements to it. So, it includes like decent homes, so still safety checks around compliance. These are statutory compliant issues as well as say ASB and so on. But I think it misses out kind of major works. So, these are whether, for example, building safety, anything above 18 metres, lifts, cladding and so on. And I think that's a huge part of, you know, the council's, or for that matter, any RSL's expense around kind of major works and building safety. I think some indicators on those would be, I think, useful for members here. Thank you for the report. Thank you, Mahmoud. Did you want to respond, Karen? I think those are useful suggestions and I'm sure that MUBIM will include those definitions going forward. Thank you. Darren, do you want to come in on that? Thank you. Sorry, yes. Thanks, Chair. It's just a point of clarification. It's quite right. It relates to the 11,600, et cetera, relates to tenanted stock and doesn't include leaseholders. And in terms of decent homes, it's, I suppose, there's a simple definition. It's safe, warm and watertight. And it does include components. So kitchens, bathrooms, et cetera. I think the decent home standard goes back to about 2008. But it was just to clarify on those points. But I think the reason it's looking specifically at tenanted stock is a lot of these KPIs mirror the tenant satisfaction measures definitions, which the RSH specifically looks at tenanted stock. They don't consider leasehold stock when they look at figures like this. Thanks. Any questions from the members? Susanna, do you have a question? Councillor? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Robin, for your presentation. Why have the THC and RIBAR size not submitted their data? And will that data be provided to this committee as they are in March together? So we have, for each quarter when we collect the data, we have a deadline. And unfortunately, they weren't able to respond to the form in time. And that's why they're not part of this collection. But I can definitely, you know, reach out to them and ask for the data. Thank you, Mubeen, for your presentation. Just a quick one. Are the figures, the whole stocks we just offer to Hamlet Council of 11,621, are they tenanted properties or just a whole stock? Susanna? Yeah, please, thank you. Just one question on the ASB. Are these the reports that go direct to the social housing? What about reports of quite severe ASB, like cuckooing and all that, that gets to the police instead? Do we kind of triangulate and make sure that we have a way of... Because to have one ASB in the whole estate is a bit too good to be true in London. Because we already see like on our streets that there are quite severe things happening where the elderly folks, the vulnerable, are getting into like a situation with drug takers. So, like if we go through the council's team, then does it get reported here or how does this get captured? Thank you. Thank you, Susanna. We'd like to respond to that. Thank you. I'll try and respond to the bits I can sort of answer. So, from the, it's page 34 on antisocial behaviour cases, we've done it by per hundred properties. So, where it's that, it says that all RPs have reported less than one antisocial behaviour cases per hundred properties. So, the total number of cases in that quarter might be more, might be less, like based on how large the RP is itself. In terms of the actual reporting on ASBs, I'm like, I think I passed that on to one of my colleagues. I'm not quite sure on the ins and outs on how that works. So, the data would include all ASBs, so cuckooing would be included in that, because it is classed as clearly, it's an illegal thing, but it would be an antisocial behaviour. It's not just one case, it's one per hundred. So, it might be easier if it's reported slightly differently, so they can see exactly how many cases, if that would help Susanna. Yeah, I'm a bit confused. If it's one per hundred, then Tower Hamlets has got 537. So, this looks like a total figure, it's not per hundred. I think Darren is trying to sort of comment on that. Darren, do you want to comment on that? Sorry, when it was on the wider point, yeah, just to echo the comments in the room there, it would include cuckooing cases. In terms of the under or over reporting, we'd have to look at that and analyse it a bit more with colleagues in the community service. But what I would say is there is a big disparity between, I think, criminality and then what actually ends up becoming an ASB case, because obviously we're in a position where we can enforce tenancies. But that doesn't always, so a crime wouldn't necessarily always lead to that depending on where that, so I understand the perception that sometimes there is perhaps more neighbourhood issues that don't lead necessarily to ASB action and enforcement. But yeah, certainly need to look at that cases per 1,000. But yeah, looking at it, I think we're sort of 2.5, is that right? I think when he was looking at 537, was that related to complaints rather than ASB? 2.5. Yeah, it's just, I said, although it's slightly confusing because the title of the slide is complaints and antisocial behaviour, but the first slide relates to complaints. And the second slide is the antisocial behaviour cases per 100 properties. So I think the slide that's just been referred to is the complaint slide, and then ASB is the slide on page 34 of the back. Yeah, and just sorry, David, as well on that point, just to come in. The reason that we're an outlier as the council on the complaints is because at the minute we are including both leaseholder and tenanted complaints within that figure. So we're looking at that's a system reporting issue that we're working through to resolve, and it should be in place by the next quarter. Thank you. Thank you. Susanna, are you happy with those? Yeah, thank you. Councillor Amin Rahman? Thank you, Chair. Talking about antisocial behaviour, I was just looking at the figures. Why are the reports of ASB in Poplahaka so much higher than the estates owned by other RSLs? Is there more ASB on reports? Do you want me to step in? What I've written down is to take back and ask what people are actually including within their figures to make sure that we're all reporting on the same thing. So I think the categories may be what's influenced is that some over-report what they'd call low-level, others don't. So I think it's worth taking that back to the panel and asking what they actually include in there. I think we'll take, Mubin and I can take that as well as well. Can I just add as well that obviously the two outliers are the two biggest RPs in the borough as well, so Poplahaka and Tahamnitz Council, so I think that might be a contributing factor as well. Yeah, but just in terms of like the operating context as well obviously with the smaller RPs because they have, in terms of how that translates as to how cases are dealt with as well, I think that might have sort of an effect. Thank you. David, did you want to come in on that? No, I mean I was just, I think another factor in this, although we can ask the question directly to Andrea to sort of maybe submit a response next time. But one of the things we often say in housing is high numbers of complaints is not necessarily bad. It may well show that actually the landlord is very effective at communicating with residents how to complain and when to complain, and what to expect from their complaints policy. So there could be something in that. I mean, coming back to Tahamnitz Council and ourselves in second position here, you know, we have the advantage of things like East End Homes where we can remind people of how to complain and when to complain through that mechanism that some other landlords will not have the benefit of. So there could be factors like that involved, but in terms of popular harker, we can ask Andrea to coordinate a response for the next meeting. Thank you. I have a question. Obviously, last week we had a very serious case of fire safety in Councillor Kabir's ward, so we are very lucky, no casualties at all. So that was quite good. Safety jets, obviously all good stuff is done, but is there a system in place when you do recommend this to the landlords, it's carried out and it's looked into in three months or six months, whatever recommendation has been given to the landlord has been done after it. Is there a system in place that we can look into? Because these RS cells have done obviously a lot of things that are recommended for them to do for safety, fire safety checks. Is there something in place that we sort of look into it every few months to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do? Thank you. Do you mean that in relation to that particular incident? Not just this, but overall, the RS cells, obviously we do recommend a lot of things, just to make sure they are on board, and we are on board as well. Thank you. I think one of the, as we know from our recent regulatory inspection, one of the things that's coming out of the fire risk assessments are remedial actions that landlords have to do, which aren't as they reported here. What we are reporting here is that all of the organisations have undertaken their fire risk assessments. But in terms of performance on remedial actions, that is something that we all have to report to the regulator on a regular basis. So there will be those checks happening to make sure that landlords have followed up and done their remedial actions. Just to say, in terms of the incident last week, I would just like to place on record my thanks to council officers and councillors and other volunteers that helped out throughout the night, actually. But, you know, from what I understand about the cause of that fire, you know, we need to remember there will always be risk of fires, even when organisations have undertaken their actions. But what we will do is we'll make sure, as Karen was saying to Mayor, there will be an incident report that will look into any lessons that need to be learnt from that or any other significant incident and applies the lessons. I guess what David's saying is that it's the role of the regulator to do those regular checks on the housing associations, just as it's doing those regular checks on us. And I think Yvonne would echo what David and I are saying in that the regulator is very, very keen on safety. And maybe Yvonne can say a little bit about her experience around engagement with the regulator on safety. Yeah. I think the other thing for assurance really to the committee is that this goes through our governance as well. So we have key performance indicators where we've had fire risk assessments carried out and there are actions that need to be taken. They're monitored by our board and our resident services committee. We do have resident and leaseholders who sit on that committee. We also have resident and leaseholders on the board. So it is being monitored by our own governance structures as a key performance indicator. And any regular, any regulator engagement, they are always looking at any outstanding. Have they all been done within time scale? So, and we have to prioritize as well. Thank you. Shalim, did you want to come in on that? Councillor, I'll come back to you after that. Thank you. Shalim? Yeah, just to kind of touch on your point about the relationship in terms of the council and RPs. In terms of obviously last week's incidents, I'm actually working with the landlord right now to kind of get more details going forward in terms of definitely lessons learned, what occurred and how we can obviously try and stop it from happening going forward. But generally, as well, in terms of with other RPs throughout, like, for example, our town is housing forum. Whenever there is an incident, we try and do our best to hold like specific meetings regarding what the incident in terms of what occurred, how we can go at stop it going forward. And we have a great relationship with the borough commander from the LFB and we always look at kind of ways to kind of obviously tackle these prominent issues. So even as we speak with this meeting being conducted today, I know there's meetings, my colleague and I will be meeting with the borough commander to look at obviously what the cause of the fire was and then look at how we can get those key messages across to the partner RPs so that they can help emphasize the importance of things like lithium batteries or whatever it may be. You're making sure that residents can dispose of batteries or anything that could be flammable and to do our best to work in partnership to get the message across to the to obviously the borough residents so they can all stay alert and we can try and reduce these incidents from happening. Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of questions about relating. Under the relating vacant unit on the table says the average major work relating time LNQ 288 days. But one bullet point is the say LNQ average is 892 days. Are this figure meant same or just which one is accurate? That's the first question. And second question I have similar like relating. Figure shows that the average standard relating time around 44 days and how we can bring this down and reduce the waiting times? And can we set target to 30 days and discuss with the RSL how they could meet this target? Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone would like to respond? Thank you. I'm happy to respond to that soon. Yvonne, thank you. The RPs will have lower relating time targets than this so they're clearly not achieving currently. I think the thing to take back is what's stopping them from achieving those turnaround times. So they will have targets of 30 days, probably less than that in some of them, but they're not achieving those on standard relating times. I think empty properties is something that we will need to take a bit more of a focus on going forward because of the desperate need that you have for rehousing people. So there is a target. Most of them aren't meeting it, is what I would say. What about the first question I asked? Which one is the correct information? 288 days and the second one is like 892 days. Which one is accurate? So those are for major works. And because we don't have any context here of what that major work is, we don't know if that's a realistic relet time or not. It could have been a complete refurbishment of the whole building. So I think if we could perhaps get some narrative on these in future where those got huge figures like that. And sometimes it could be that their average relet time on major works is much lower than that, but they've had one that has completely skewed the figure. So I do think some narrative would be helpful. Sorry Councillor, could I just clarify? You were saying 288 days and what was the other figure that you were saying? 892 in the 90. So that was for quarter two and the 288 is for quarter three this quarter. But you would expect with an 892 that there's a property that's completely skewed those figures. That wouldn't be what you would expect normally. So there will be a property that would be one property that's been vacant for three years because it's got major structural repairs. And now that they've let it, it comes into this figure. So that's an issue. But I do think you need a narrative to explain that. Thank you Councillor. Thank you Councillor. Councillor Rahman, your question please. Thank you. Thank you Chair. Just a quick question on the vacant units. How does the RSO come to have a vacant unit available for lettings? Okay. So that could be, for example, East End Homes, we've got a number at the moment that are unavailable for letting because we need to hold them for decanting people from Coniston House. So to move people into because they need decanting. Others, we've got some properties down at St George's that the cost to redo those voids is completely prohibitive to do it, to do the works. And so we need to go down and look at a kind of decision about what we do with those properties going forward. So there will be some that are just not available to re-let and decisions are being made about the future of those properties. Councillor? Happy with this? If I could just add on the void section of it. It would be nice to have some figures that you can provide the committee, the void premises that we have. In the last action log they provided that. Do we have some numbers? Data? Sorry Chair, just to say that in the action log there was an item where details were provided on void properties very recently. So I don't know whether the committee wants to just review that data that was circulated this week and maybe come up with any further questions. Yes Paul, that would be nice. But did they give us some figures on that data? If you could circulate that, that would be good. Thank you. We'll move on. The data was just for the council, voids. But I don't know whether the question is about registered provider voids. So the information you already had was supplied by us as a council for our properties. So Councillor Rahman, are you talking about the council's void properties or RSL properties that are void? Microphone please. Yeah, RSLs, yeah. If that could be provided that would be... Do you have any figures on that? Or we are still waiting? The details only provided were only for council properties. So that question hasn't been asked. I can put that in the action log for this meeting. Thank you. If that could be noted please. Councillor Rahman, thank you. Did you want to add something Yvonne? Yeah, just to say obviously that would be a point in time that you get those because by the following week some of those will have been let and new ones will have come in. So I think it's probably worth thinking about how useful that information will be. Thank you Yvonne. Thank you. We'll move on. Any other questions here? Anyone? Suzanne? You're happy? OK, we will move on. Thank you. I've just got... Sorry, yes, moving. Yes? Two points to make. I think one is that we do have a lot of extra sort of commentary but I think the way the report is presented, I think it's not found its way onto the actual, what we're getting here. So I think next time what I'll do is I'll add that onto the end of the slides themselves. And the other thing I was going to say is the sort of changes that Mahbub was talking about for us to make on the report. The quarter four report has already gone out of those changes. OK, thank you. Thank you very much for that. I think it was a good session on this and we will move on to the next item. To track the implementation of recommendations from last year's scrutiny challenge sessions on housing providers' performance in the borough. Obviously, Councillor Kabirah is not here tonight. David Joyce, who is joining us today. We will be presenting that. Is that right, David? We will be doing this or someone else? Well, it's actually Karen that's going to... Karen? Yes, fine. Thank you very much. You have five minutes to do so and we will take questions after. Thank you. So, Tracy's joined me here. So, Tracy has been working on the action plan. So, you recall that you did a deep dive on register of provider engagement and performance. And you've made, I think it was five recommendations of which there were 23 actions. So, the report is providing an update on progress on those actions, 13 of which have been completed and the other 10 remain ongoing. And I have to say that the majority of them will probably remain ongoing because they are actions around, for example, identifying ongoing training needs for members or for quarterly data on TSNs, which obviously will come quarterly. So, it will be continuous. So, but 13 have already been completed. I'll hand over to Tracy to go through some of the key ones that have been completed. Good evening, everybody. Thank you. As Karen's saying, she's already mentioned, there were five recommendations that were agreed following this brutally challenge session. The first being members' request to have a spotlight session at each of the meetings and have an RP attend each one of those sessions, particularly where that RP is being discussed. In relation to recommendation number one, actions associated, actions A to C, have all been completed and focused on the need to have sufficient forward planning to enable the right RP representation in the room, giving adequate notice of what they're expected to contribute, and THCH were the first of those RPs invited, taking this approach, and they were invited in the summer of last year, and this approach will continue to evolve going forward. Item D, under recommendation D, is ongoing, and that's basically just about ensuring the forward plan is provided to the executive, and that will be provided once the forward plan has been completed in the autumn of this year. Recommendation 2 focuses on the building and of training provisions, so that committee members can better analyse RP TSM performance data submitted on a quarterly basis by RPs. All actions are ongoing in this particular area, and they will kick off with a training session that has already been organised by the scrutiny lead officer, with one of our senior performance analysts, and that session will be held early in the next municipal year, with future sessions identified as and when that will be built into the forward plan. Recommendation 3 focused on emphasising the importance of inviting residents to scrutiny meetings to make the sessions more robust, and the action outlined here homing again on identifying the sessions where resident input is required at an early stage, and developing suitable criteria for their inclusion, including things like adequate notice, clarity on what's expected, and encouraging written representation where possible. With the exception of item G, all actions are complete, and action G, which is about really ensuring RPs have the right to reply at the end of those sessions, that will be built into the forward plan when that's completed as well towards the autumn of this year. And this year the scrutiny panel had an engagement session with the tenant voice panel in February, and next year's session will be developed as part of the forward planning process, which will include inviting relevant RP responses to concerns raised by residents in that follow-up meeting. In relation to recommendation 4, this was basically about the management of the council's own housing stock to ensure it's well managed, and the actions here were for the scrutiny officer and the head of regulatory insurance. All items 1 to 4 are noted as complete, and homing on the need to review performance data in each service area to identify appropriate areas for inclusion in spotlight sessions, as well as any particular session dedicated to challenges and improvement performance. In relation to item number 5, that's the one item that I would draw to the attention of the committee, that was for the council as opposed to the scrutiny panel. All actions are ongoing in this particular area, and highlighted on the need for scrutiny members to work with stakeholders and the council to maximise its powers to improve the services delivered to residents. In this particular area, the housing and policy improvement team have hosted and asked the ombudsman event, that was for residents, it was actually attended by the housing ombudsman, and the intention there was to ensure residents were equipped with the information that they needed to make an official complaint, and pursue it through to the ombudsman service should they need to, and members were invited to that particular session, and the council's website has been updated to give residents who weren't able to participate more information. The final thing on that point was that TSM data continues to be provided, as you're all aware, as and when on a quarterly basis, and that the information and analysis taken from those sessions are used to inform future spotlight and challenge sessions that the scrutiny liaison officer adds to the agenda for members. Thank you. Paul, did you want to add something to that? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Chair. Just on the slide for recommendation two, as most of those actions come under myself, they're all listed as ongoing. The narrative I wanted to provide behind that is that the deadline for the completion of that was the 31st of March. What we did was we have gone through a process of identifying the trainer that will provide training sessions to the scrutiny panel about how to analyse and interpret data. However, at that time, the scrutiny program hadn't been developed at the time the report was written, and now we've found that we've identified that there was only one meeting of this current year left. So the decision was taken that we will wait until the new scrutiny panel has been appointed. The members of that have been decided to make sure that training is given to those early in the municipal year. So the only reason that that's ongoing rather than completed is it just made a practical sense to delay that to the appointment of new members rather than the current ones only getting training for one meeting. Thank you, Paul. That's very helpful indeed. Mahbub, your question, please. Thank you. Paul, just on, you know, you said about providing training in the new municipal year. Would the training be open just for councillors or would it be also open for myself and Suzanne as co-opties? The training is expected to be for all committee members. Any questions? No? Fine. Councillor? Yeah, Councillor Kabir, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Recommendation 5, following on the Housing Ombudsman event, are there any event planned for committee, resident and... Sorry, complaints process. Sorry. The one that was organised with the Housing Ombudsman, that one was for residents. That was an external event, but members were invited to that as well, RPs actually, to participate in that particular session. We are having, we are involved in ongoing discussions with the Mayor's Office about rolling out briefing sessions for councillors and the best approach of doing that. It's really just a matter of timing and pulling together an appropriate pack for a members training session, but there will be something organised in conjunction with the Mayor's Office for members going forward to give residents more advice as and when they come forward with various case work. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for that and a good presentation to get some feedbacks from you. It's always welcomed. Now we move on to the next item on the agenda. Regular... Regula... Sorry? Regulator. Regulator. Social Housing. Regulator of Social Housing Report. I'd like to obviously, the Chair, sorry, the Councillor Cumberland is not here. So David, you'll be doing this. Over to you. Thank you. You have five minutes. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Chair. I will hand over to Darren, but just to say by way of introduction, this is an update on our recent inspection that we've had with the regulator. As you will all know, the regulator was on site for two days and attended various meetings online, including the previous meeting of this committee, but also went out to tenant voice and met various tenant representatives as part of the process as well. It was a very thorough inspection. I think we've learned a huge amount as a service. It's been quite galvanising for us in terms of the issues that we need to address, but also, going right back to the beginning, it was off the back of a self-referral from the service to the regulator, and the regulator was welcoming of the fact that we had done that and the level of information we provided was formed the basis for the inspection. So I think it's been a very helpful process, but what I do want to just say is that we don't get the formal decision until I think the 29th of April in two weeks' time, so we're not at liberty or in the position yet to be able to share what the outcome of the inspection is going to be, but the presentation that Darren will run through can give you a flavour of the sorts of issues that they looked at and some of the reflections that they've made to us informally. So Darren, just before Darren comes in, if we could just consider the slide has been taken as read by the subcommittee members, and if you could just briefly give us an update. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Sorry, there's a bit of feedback there. They were able to identify, you know, quite a lot of progress has been made since self-referral, so that was pleasing, namely around our health and safety, so our landlord compliance activity, so outstanding fire safety actions, Legionella and electrical, and also our complaints. service, and they also noted a real strong commitment to resident engagement and a strong presence through elected members out in the community representing residents' views and meeting the diverse needs of tenants. They very much support all the governance arrangements that we have in place, including this committee, and spoke very positively around that, but clearly identified areas that we need to work on, and, you know, that will be sort of revealed in the judgment. But what we can say is, I think, as it's in the presentation, there's still a lot of work to do. So, yes, we've demonstrated that we're making progress. We've identified the issues in the self-referral. We've got a plan to address those. But we are still, in some cases, in the early stages of that journey to get into where we need to be. I think that's pretty much, you know, I'm open to questions now. Thank you for that. Now we will move on to the questions. Councillor? Yeah, your question, please. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. How is the Council involving the resident into the developing plan areas and need to be developed? Would you like me to take that one, David? Yes, please, Darren. Thanks. I can come on off the back of you. Yeah. So, we've got a Your Voice, Our Action Improvement Plan, which covers all areas of all the four consumer standards. In terms of resident engagement, we've mentioned the Tenant Voice scrutiny panel, but over the next six to 12 months, there's going to be a lot of engagement with residents on estates around sort of targeted neighborhood action plans and improvement plans, development of service standards, and co-design of services and policy development. So, that won't just be limited to formalized resident engagement structures like the scrutiny panel. It will be open for all residents to input into and to shape services and to hold us to account. Thank you. Yes, Councillor, follow-up. Thank you. Thank you. One of the specific questions. Can you give me some updates about Old Chest Hospital? What's going on? Is there any updates there? Hold on. That's a Clarion. That's a Clarion site, the Old Chest Hospital. Do you want to come on that? Well, it's owned by Clarion. I think, I'll check and come back, but I think they've been in for pre-application with our planning colleagues, so they have got a scheme and they've been in to talk to planning about the scheme, which will be a mixed development of private housing and affordable housing. But I'll bring a report, I'll get an update and I'll make sure that Paul circulates it. Thank you. Thank you. Karen, happy? Councillor? Mahbub, your question, please. Thank you. Yes, so thank you for that. So, in terms of page 55, which talks about kind of areas of development and I appreciate that we're still in the kind of the early stages. And I guess for us as scrutiny at say the following scrutiny session, I think what would, you know, we do appreciate that. I think hopefully by that stage, plans and kind of delivery targets, whether it's repairs or stock condition or whatever, they'd be a bit more finalised. And if you could come in and present to us that these are, you know, our plans and these are our delivery targets and this is what we'll go back and report back to the regulators. So, therefore, we'd, you know, come and present to the scrutiny here. David, thank you. Yeah, thank you, Chair. I think it's a really important point that this committee gets regular updates on all of the things that you've described and certainly that is our plan. So, on all of the key areas where we've got work to do, particularly around stock decency, stock condition surveys, which we're really hoping to motor on with this year and get up to 100% on, as a for instance, we will give you regular updates on how we're doing against that. But also, other areas as well will probably be more of a focus for deep dives here, like our repairs improvement plan. So, I would really welcome the opportunity to bring regular reports on these issues to this committee, but also where you have specific areas of interest for us to bring more detailed reports where we can delve into it in a more formal way. But what you'll certainly get is regular performance updates on things like our compliance actions, stock conditions, stock decency, and all of those things. Thank you, David. David, do you have a follow-up? Yeah. I think also as part of it would be kind of the capital programme would be quite useful. I think so, like previously when I was on Tanner's Homes Board, you know, we had a programme and some of the works are over a period of time and whether we, you know, we talk about cladding or we're talking about building safety regulations or even kind of some of the challenging ones like Mortings and Brewster. Those two blocks, they're hugely challenging. And I think an update on those kind of things would also be useful. Thank you, Chair. I'm very happy to bring an update on the capital programme in terms of both the works that we've got on site because we've got over £30 million of works on site on schemes like the one you mentioned, but also that forward-looking asset management plan, including where we've got a major procurement exercise that we want to go through to take forward the firepower that we've got on our HRA business plan around £140 million of investment. So I think you're absolutely right that that would be a good area of focus for here, but obviously it's subject to your work programme as a committee. Yeah, and as a separate thing to kind of this piece of work with the regulators, I think on previous scrutiny, you know, we had talked about kind of in terms of the council's affordable housing stock where they're doing development on different schemes, whether it's Klitschia State or whatever, and we did have the discussion that in future scrutiny sessions, we'd also have a report that is presented here. So for example, the Klitschia State, and I think, so as a kind of region development schemes or council's affordable stock, I think in particular with the kind of mayor's target of delivering, I think 1,000 homes per year, I think. So those kind of things would also be beneficial for us to receive at this scrutiny. Absolutely. I'm happy also to update on the council house building programme and the wider affordable housing programme that we've got in Tower Hamlets, so happy to give an update on that as well, if you see fit as a committee, obviously. Thank you, David. I can see Darren would like to comment on that. Thank you, Darren. Sorry, thank you, Chair. Yeah, it was just specifically on the capital delivery programme, but that is on the forward plan for our cabinet, newly formed cabinet subcommittee. So oversight will be seen there as well, and it will be scrutinised there, because that's a key aspect of unlocking some of the decency challenges we've got. Yeah. Thank you. Susanna, do you have a question? Thank you. Right. I think it's great. The areas for development is really kind of an honest reflection on the areas to improve, which is really good. I think, yeah, I just want to make a comment that we can't wait to know, in terms of especially information to tenants, you know, how you evidence what you do to the outcome, and communicate that to more residents in an easy-to-understand manner, because it could be an opportunity to actually give some positivity for, you know, the years of complaints and failures. And, yeah, so it's not a question, but it's, well, in a way it's a question, maybe when you have the answer as to how you're going to do it. I think to Mabut's idea, bring it here and then we can refine or talk about it, because we are the residents. Some of us are, actually all of us are, so, yeah. Thank you. Susanna, would you like to respond to that? Yeah, I mean, just to agree, I think it would be really good to bring the plan here for your input. I mean, this is, going back to your first comment about it being quite an honest assessment, I think the thing that pleases me is that we did show our self-awareness by self-referring, and we did recognise that these were areas. I think often, as a service as well, we are doing good work, but the bit that we have not been so good at is communicating that back to tenants and leaseholders, and actually communicating the impact of your previous input is this. So it would be really good to have that conversation with you around how can we do that effectively, what are the different channels, how do we get beyond, you know, the people who are digitally enabled, for instance. Thank you. Any other questions for anyone? Darren has his hands up again. Yes, Darren, thank you. Sorry, thank you, Chair. Yes, specifically on that point around communication, completely take that on board and we do need to implement a much more of a, you said, we did approach the feeding back outcomes for residents. But there is an ongoing communications review actually that the council are doing around the best way that we can communicate with leaseholders and tenants. So I was encouraged, but perhaps I could share a link via the opposite afterwards. But we recognise things like having much more accessible communication out in the communities is the way to go. And that's been the feedback from the regulator. So looking at things like an insert into our East End that specifically around housing and how we're doing as a service is something that we're looking at as part of that review. Thank you, David. Any other questions from the members? No, thank you. Thank you very much, David, Karen, Yvonne. Oh, sorry, you do have one. Sorry. Thank you. Yes. This is a point for yourself, Chair. Of course, this is the last meeting for this municipal year and we've got the next municipal year. I think what would be useful for us is to have the dates for the upcoming, you know, Municipal A and B, the forward programme. So I think we'd like to go to the forward programme prior to the next meeting because it's all those things that we discussed with the eastern tenants voice panel, the landlord report, the performance of which the regulators are asking, eastern homes. You know, we would want to see that in the programme. So then if there are any gaps or any missing, then we can, you know, we can say that this is what we'd like the school to be informed. And so we can ask officers for reports and that's, you know, programmed into the forward programme. Yeah, I just wanted to come in to say that part of our communications plan for when we get the formal outcome confirmed to us on current system, I mean, it's the 30th of April. So ways to communicate the outcome with all the key stakeholders, including members of this committee. So we'll communicate it particularly to you, Chair, and then more widely. And I think the helpful thing about that is when the municipal year is formed and you're forming your work programme, you will have receipt of the report, the judgment from the regulator, which may help inform you what you focus on in the next year. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, David. My question, did you want to add? Yeah, Justina would like to respond to something. Thank you. Sorry, just in relation to the committee dates for the municipal year 2025-26, they were provisionally agreed by Council, but obviously the AGM, they will be formally, and once that's done, then we will get the dates. I can't give you the dates now. They need to be agreed at the AGM. But as soon as that's done, they will be presented. Thank you, Justina, for that update. Paul would like to say a few things on the forward planning. Thank you. Yeah, just as a further follow-up to that question. So all members of Scrutiny will be involved during the summer in a full development of the work programme for all different Scrutiny committees, the OSC committee and all their subcommittees. So last year there was a workshop. I imagine there will be something very similar where everybody will be asked to contribute. So that will be the opportunity for people to reiterate what they've said here. I mean, we'll probably start the ball rolling by saying some of the things that have been suggested at committee meetings, but it will be taken on board when the forward programme process is developed. Thank you very much. No, that's it. We are done for tonight. Thank you to Darren, sorry, David, Karen, Yvonne again, and Darren who is joining us online. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will go to the next item. Any other business to discuss? Members? Anyone? No? Thank you very much. And obviously this is the last meeting for this committee. Thank you very much for your time, your energy, your input. It has been very helpful. Thank you very much to everybody who has been part of this. And have a good evening. Thank you very much. Thank you, Tim. Thank you. Thank you.