Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee - Thursday 2 October 2025, 7:30pm - Wandsworth Council Webcasting

Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee
Thursday, 2nd October 2025 at 7:30pm 

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  1. Webcast Finished

Welcome to the meeting.
I am Councillor Sarah Davis and I am Councillor for Wandsworth Town.
I was elected in 2022 and I am the Chair of the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee.
Members of this committee, I am now going to call on your names in alphabetical order.
Please switch on your microphone to confirm your attendance
Councillor airs
I'm here
Councillor corner
present
Councillor Fraser
Good evening, Councillor Covina. Yeah. Good evening
Councillor mrs. Graham
I'm here
Councillor Hamilton
Councillor Macleod
Hey miss
Councillor Stock. Good evening everybody. And Councillor Varatharaj. Good evening.
Okay so we've received apologies for absence from Mr. Thomas Glockland, he's
the Vice Chair of the Borough Residence Forum and I'd also like to welcome
Councillor Dickardam as the cabinet member for housing. So we've got a number
of officers present, they'll introduce themselves when they address the
committee. And we've also got Mr. Chadwick here, well we've got Mr. Worth here and Mr.
Chadwick who is the Executive Director of Residence Services.
So item on a point of order, just following the horrific events in Manchester today and
could we have a moment of silence of the committee?
I was actually going to move on to that myself actually before we got on to the papers.
We can do that now or I was going to do the minutes in the declaration of interest first, but you've raised it so we will do that now.
Yeah, it's an appalling tragedy and we're all deeply shocked and our hearts and minds
just go out to all of those affected.
Thank you.

1 Minutes - 18th June 2025

So, yeah, so moving on, we've got item one, the minutes, from the meeting on the 18th
of June.
Are there any objections to confirming the minutes as a correct record?
Just, Chair, on the minutes, I mean, I looked at them.
We agreed that we would have the waste and recycling on the State's paper for this meeting.
I know it's scheduled for next one.
We also talked about budget monitoring that we would have here, and there's nothing in
here.
And then we also talked about in the discussions of the working group, and of course there's
somewhere else, some reference to it.
We thought that we would be reporting on the workings of the working group so that there
was a public sharing of what that secret meeting was discussing.
So I am surprised, firstly, that the waste and recycling paper being rescheduled was
not communicated to us.
Perfectly happy that it was rescheduled, but I think in terms of protocol terms, as an
we should be told if one of our decisions cannot be executed because of whatever reason.
We weren't told, that's one thing.
The other is about budgets, hopefully somebody will tell us.
But on the working group, I think there is a substantive issue,
because the meeting takes place in private, which is perfectly right,
but there is then no public sight of what that committee or that working group has been discussing.
And we talked about it at the working group that we wanted to somehow shared and broadcast because after all
There are 34 ,000 households there
interested in the outcome of our discussions and I really do think that we should absolutely have a
publicly
Readable paper on our agenda each time there has been an working group meeting
So we do have the work programme on the agenda today.
So we will be discussing that and having an overview of what's happening there.
But it's very much going to be developing
and we do need to make sure that we're
causing decisions there and ultimately
we might put together a report.
We might make recommendations.
So very much it's for the members of that working group
to formulate it but there's nothing,
there's nothing, certainly nothing secret.
We do want transparency, we do want to,
That's the reason we're doing it, is to have a much deeper sense of scrutiny, that's a
modern style of scrutiny, to also have input from different stakeholders, not just ourselves
and the officers here, to really sort of validate our opinions and our decision making.
I really don't want to pursue this.
I mean, I do think that on this level,
I don't think there are party issues here.
It is about transparency for people out there,
and we did talk about it.
The other is that as members, we decided at the last meeting
what we would have, and we haven't got it.
So again, as members of this committee,
we should be saying, where is what you promised?
Well, it isn't here.
There is an explanation.
I perfectly well understand.
I've been here before, so I understand that.
but it is about again sharing in advance why what cannot be delivered is here.
I mean it's about respecting us for our evening,
otherwise I can come here, spout, go home, none of it gets heard, listened or acted on.
Even as simple as can I have a paper.
Thank you so much, we very much value your contributions to the working...
Thank you.
We value the contributions of all of the members to this committee and also to the working
group.
And we can certainly make sure that we are fleshing it out a little bit more.
Thank you.
I think you're right.
The discussion of the task and finish group, which I was invited to sit in on but don't
necessarily have to contribute to or can be not invited.
The key is in the finished part, so I would absolutely demand of you that you bring something
to the committee and to make recommendations based on the way that it operates.
I guess if we did it iteratively at each meeting, we went through what the, it would kind of
undermine the purpose of going away and doing it, but there might be some agreed on writing
that isn't a totally detailed minutes, but something that after each session of the task
and finish group says this is what was discussed, these were the key themes, and it is leading
us in a certain direction.
But I guess if at every single meeting we had an update on the task of finish group,
we were kind of replicating the reason we have the task and finish group in the first
place, I definitely think there will be transparency, because at the end, you will be able to say
we disagreed on X, this was the journey we went on, these are our recommendations for
cabinet and if you don't listen, well, you're accountable because there's a public document
outlining our arguments, our asks, or the scrutiny that we discovered in the process.
I can see you're not totally happy with that answer.
Look, just to hear back your own words, we could have a budget and an annual report on
the accounts.
No need for quarterly accounts because you will get it out in the wash later on.
We have a work programme and we have interim reports.
No need to have those because you'll have it in the washer then.
I recognise the sensitivity with which you report it,
but if I'm Joe blog out there,
I really want to know that the council is taking it seriously.
And however you do it...
I mean, our officers are well informed about how to write something
that's both informative and sensitive.
I'm not saying who said what and, you know, what argument happened.
It's about a downside of an A4 about issues raised, issues to be raised,
and actually, Council Stock will probably be able to help us out.
We almost have a kind of a programme of what we are going to do step by step,
and maybe that is what your public out there doesn't know what you're going to do.
Yeah, if I can clarify.
So when we get to this point on the agenda,
we will be having an update from the chair of that task and finish scrutiny group.
So that's a verbal update, but definitely, you know, yeah, let's look to having, you know, paper written updates as well.
I think I agreed with that idea.
Thank you, Jake. Yeah, just as the chair of the task and finish group,
We did have a discussion about how we would keep this committee informed and how we would
demonstrate transparency in terms of the nature of this discussion.
I think the agenda is quite clear that I intended to give an oral update under the final paper
on this item today.
I think if there is still anxiety about how this committee is kept undated about the work,
I think we should discuss it again at the task and finish group.
But I do think, you know, we should be trying to finish the task and finish group, and I
I think there is still some real thinking that we need to do as a task and finish group
as to what good looks like in terms of that.
And when we have a better understanding, I think possibly of that, I think we'll have
a much better understanding how best to keep this committee informed as well.
So yeah, happy to give that update on the last item of the agenda.
I think we can continue to discuss how best to keep this committee informed and how also
to keep the public informed.
But the idea of task and finish group is they don't go on forever.
So we do need to keep pace and try and identify what really we want to do and move to deliver
it quickly.
So yes, you've made a comment on the minutes, but are we agreeing that there are no objections
to confirming them?
Thank you.

2 Declarations of Interests

So item two, are there declarations of interest?
Are there any declarations of either pecuniary, other registrable or non -registrable interests?
Yes, Councillor McAllister.
I'm a council tenant.
I'm a member of the London Renters Union which is relevant to discussions on licencing and
things like that.
Okay, so item number three.

3 Maysoule Road Fire Update

So in a moment we're going to have an update on the Mesa Road fire update.
And I just wanted to say first that I just feel so very, very sorry for the residents
involved and I know that this is life -changing for them. I did actually go
along to York Gardens library and managed to speak to a few people who are
naturally very traumatised and I saw I think the very best of the council
coming together to give them all the very personalised care and attention
that they needed but I don't want to go into more detail but yes Mr. Worth, thank you.
So thank you, Chair.
Evening Committee.
So I'm just going to give a brief update.
I'm aware you're receiving, I think if it's not daily, it's very regular updates via Clara Connor.
So I won't go into too much detail.
And I'll focus on the housing team's response.
So today is, I think, Day 21 since the fire.
We stood up services on the night pretty quickly.
We opened a rest centre.
Staff attended along with teams from the rest of the council.
Our main task on the evening was to provide temporary accommodation to those who needed it.
This is the, I've been here since 2002, and this is the largest such incident I can recall.
So it was unprecedented, at least over that sort of period.
We in the end we had to provide and did provide accommodation for around
31 32 households overnight it did take longer than we would have liked and that will be a point of learning
For us some families didn't get to the accommodation until the very early hours of the morning
So so that is definitely something we've locked as a as a learning point, but generally speaking
I think the response on the night was you know very very good
The residents that I met both on the night and in subsequent shifts down at the library,
I think it was appreciated by our tenants and residents.
They've given that feedback.
Since then, we've moved to prioritise almost immediate rehousing.
So, you know, we could have taken the view that actually it's not – it's a situation
of homelessness, therefore we provide longer -term temporary accommodation.
But given the circumstances, we've moved to provide immediate accommodation.
As of today, of the 31 secure tenants – sorry, 29 secure tenants – we have firm offers
out in one form or another to 26, 27 of them. There's a couple of families where
we're, either their housing needs are particularly complex or they have told
us they would like to move out of the borough for various reasons which we're
pursuing. We've had about, I think it's around a dozen people already accept
alternative permanent offers, so that's, you know, really good after 21 days.
The leaseholders, there weren't very many of them.
One is sorting themselves out under their insurance and making arrangements.
Two others we're dealing with under homelessness provisions.
And we had three temporary accommodation residents in the block.
And they've all been provided with alternative non -hotel accommodation.
We've provided accommodation in travel lodges, the majority of which is now in the borough.
and we've booked that through to the 23rd of October
in the hope that by then we would have been able
to have resettled all or very nearly all of the residents.
So I think that's as much as any local authority
housing team could have done in those 21 days since.
We're still in the jargon, we're still in the response stage
not the recovery stage.
And there will be a moment whenever that might present itself to do a proper debrief and learning, because like I say, it's been a big event.
I think on the housing side of things, that's probably what I want to say, other than to just say my pride and
gratitude in all of the staff who've turned out on the night and have turned out since.
It has been, as the chair says, a really good example of the council working across departments together.
But I think for this committee, just to note that the housing team's part in that.
I think Mr. Chadwick wants to add.
If I can add some wider points, thanks Dave.
So yeah, I'm actually gold right now, so I can bring that context to it.
And part of the wider gold support group, I think there's been a very good
cross directorate effort to first of all get this assistance centre in place.
we were driven on that by our emergency plan,
but also on experience of obviously larger scale events,
but with some similarities in Grenfell.
The way we set up the assistance centre was rapid,
had the right advice within it,
based on a number of our experiences of that tragedy.
I think more generally since that moment,
the cross directorate effort has been superb.
I would say that, wouldn't I,
especially about the joint working between the former environment directorate and the
former housing directorate.
Lots of good effort there on security, on scaffolding, on what has been a really difficult
thing for the tenants, access to their possessions.
It's been really tricky to give them access, but that's been a cross -directorate effort
to get them in safely at an appropriate moment and get them able to access at least their
their most immediate, most valuable possessions.
More generally across all the directorates,
the humanitarian support has been great,
as has the financial support offered by vouchers
quickly given out to all affected residents
and their children actually, including in terms of
school uniform support, all that kind of thing,
was all kicked in very quickly.
So I think Dave and Señor, it's been a great effort.
Grateful to members as well for their support along the way.
No number of you have been to the centre.
I know a number of you have offered
wider support as well.
And yeah, we're still in the gold phase.
I think as Dave points out, there'll be a moment
where we start kind of moving towards what we're doing
as being business as usual, as it were,
and where we start to look at any weaknesses
that there were in the, and there always are,
improvements to make in these things and we'll be looking at that over the next few weeks.
Thank you councillors. Thank you very much. So I'd like to bring in
Councillor Stock and then Mrs Graham, thank you. And I'm bringing in Councillor Stock first because
she's the wall councillor where this occurs. Thank you chair. Yeah just speaking from a
Councillor perspective first. I suppose as you've both said this was a
significant fire that has had a significant impact on the residents in
in Fox House and I too would like to thank staff and the local community,
local schools, the local sports centre and local VCS organisations who have
really stepped up. It really has been the best of Battersea in respect of some of
the support that's been able to be provided for the residents who have
suffered in the fire. But as I think Mr Worth and Mr. Chadwick have said,
there's still work to do. It's good to really hear that we've offered 27 of
our secure tenants council homes, but I know that there is more work to do to
get people settled and for them to be able to get possessions for them to
continue to live their lives and to understand whether they're going to be
when and if they're going to be able to return to Fox House. I just also wanted
to update the committee as well that very kindly our local MP in Batsy, Marsha De Cordova,
chaired a meeting yesterday. Residents have been in contact with her. She facilitated
that with Councillor Hawke, the leader of the council, and my fellow wall councillor,
and myself. Three residents attended that meeting, two from Fox House themselves and
one from a neighbouring block. I know some of the issues raised in that meeting, some
the feedback has been fed back directly to officers. But I just thought I would
like to take the opportunity to just raise two issues. I suppose I
understand there is concern and some difficulty in really understanding what
caused the fire in the particular flat. But I think residents are equally, if
not more concerned about why the fire spread and why it spread so quickly and
what our assessment of that risk was prior to the fire. And I know residents
in the neighbouring blocks have got the waking watch,
but there, and I know work is going into considering
once again the risks in those blocks,
but I think there is concern around proposed action
that might need to be taken in relation to the blocks
on the same estate that are of a similar design,
and I know that has been actively looked at by offices,
but residents are looking for that reassurance.
And then also a kind of perpetual challenge
which I do recognise in relation to communication and some consistency in communication and again
I can understand how that can happen because each resident has their own very bespoke issues
And clearly often it is a very fast -moving situation. So I think
Residents have really welcomed having a dedicated officer and it's really great again to see that we've learned from other
Significant events such as Grenfell and the work that we've we've done here
But some anxiety and concern from residents around consistency of information on housing
and the ability of some of those dedicated officers to deal with housing specific issues.
But I do recognise that there are challenges around dedicated officers being able to deal
with individual casework.
And then just similarly along the lines of communication, I think residents have really
welcomed our use of text messages and the vouchers that you referred to.
That's been positively received,
but a kind of request for possibly more proactive
communication if we can do that.
We discussed, for example, emotional support.
I know that is available.
We've offered the emotional assistance programme
that's available to council staff,
to residents within that block is my understanding.
But perhaps while some of that information
is available on the council's website
in an FAQ section, are there opportunities
for us to be proactive in terms of the offer
of some of the support that we're putting out there?
But thank you again to officers and the local community for their work.
But as we've said, there's more work to do.
And this isn't the end.
Just to give brief answers to those, I suppose the overarching one is we've got our next gold meeting tomorrow.
So we'll happily take those points back to gold.
On the course of the fire, the fire brigade have not yet been able to get their specialist fire investigation team into the site of the fire
because the building is in the condition it is and it's not safe for them to do so at the moment.
So on that basis we don't have any update to give apart from as soon as they're able they will go in and then obviously we will wait for their findings
things and that may inform the next steps.
And I think that's what I can reasonably say on that at this point.
On the communication point, so every affected family has been allocated
a key worker through which most of the general updates should go.
The split there was families with children were allocated somebody from children's services
because of their skill set and people without children have got a housing officer attached to them.
And as you referenced, there is a resource pack that those officers have.
It includes frequently asked questions.
On the rehousing side, it's been our teams that have been having those direct conversations.
So there is a potential there for a bit of mixed messaging or confusion, I guess.
But obviously, the key thing from our perspective is to make sure that the person having the
conversation is best equipped to have it.
So I think that might be that.
But thank you for the feedback, and we'll take that away.
And on the last point, as I say, we'll take that back to Gold, you know, and see how better
we can reach out to residents and address any issues they might have.
Thank you for those points and responses.
Mrs. Graham.
Thank you.
Thank you chair. And I applaud all the support our lovely officers have given to that dreadful
scene that night. But it's interesting as you discussed going forward, lessons learnt.
Now that's the area where the fire and the lateness of residents finding accommodation.
Now you did mention it to us, but I would like some further information as regards to
actions in the future.
Thank you.
So just to come back on that, so the process we have for these type of emergencies is we
have an arrangement, I wouldn't call it a contract because it's not kind of binding,
so you only need it when you need it, with a thing called ICAB, which is the Insurance
insurance companies would go for people with cover.
And in theory, they can arrange any amount of accommodation
you want at any standard you wanted.
So if we needed, if somebody needs, for example,
a six bedroom house with a swimming pool,
apparently they can find it.
It's a standard thing.
It wasn't helped on the night by the fact it was a tube strike.
That was a real complicating factor.
And so we, so the call went out to them to find the number of rooms we needed.
There was a point at about one in the morning where it was clear that they were struggling.
And then we mobilised.
Myself and other staff got busy.
Miss Condesora at the end there happens to live in a place in southwest London where there are lots of hotels.
So I called her and she was driving around hotels, knocking on the doors, trying to say you've got any rooms.
It was, we did make it up as we went along, a little bit.
And to be frank, we're not happy with the length of time some of those residents waited.
I met two families at about, I can't remember what time it was, about quarter to five in the morning.
And I expected them to turn up and be a little bit annoyed, to be frank.
And they were so lovely. It was, you know, lovely to see really.
So that's a definite learning point for us.
We need to go back to ICAB and establish that.
One thing that has happened, and it
might be a question you raise later,
you'll be aware we are bringing online a large temporary
accommodation facility down in Tooting in the next few months.
Had we had that, and whilst we want
to keep that as full as possible,
there will always be some vacancies.
We would have gone straight to them
because that staff 24 hours and it's ours.
So I actually had thought of this angle, but I think that gives us a bit more resilience around this.
Trying to make 30 odd placements overnight on the night of a tube strike was difficult.
So that's a learning point we will take forward.
I learned some things that night that I didn't know previously, like if you want to find accommodation
past midnight for that night, it's already tomorrow.
And that's a real problem.
So the tip I got was actually,
and this was one of the hotel managers,
he said phone America, it's still yesterday.
Who knew?
So you learn these things.
So yeah, I'll stop rambling,
but that's definitely a learning point.
And just to add, of course, all these points and more,
because of the nature of the scale of the event,
it is a standard process that we will,
when we're through the recovery stage, we will review.
And there will be a review report
that parts of it might be confidential,
but most of it will be public, I'm sure.
And that is always our aim, to make them public.
Lessons learned not just for us,
but also for the other organisations
and authorities involved, including the LFP, of course.
But we can't focus on that right now while we're still in the gold period to stress that.
Okay, so I'm going to take one more question on this, and then we'll move on.
But obviously, there is going to be this report, and we're still getting our updates.
So would you be happy with…
I think you can squeeze two.
Oh, okay.
I mean, I...
Yeah, can we...
If we can have...
I'm not sure if they're on the same theme, so...
Perhaps not, actually.
Right.
I'd say everything that's been said about joint working and all that, so I won't repeat all of that.
But can I just ask a question about insurances?
Not only just the council's insurance, but the residents' insurance.
And of course, a lot of residents are often not insured.
and in a sense those who have lost their goods and assets and so on, and what is our response to them and or support for them.
And in some ways whether this is an opportunity to once again say to people that an insurance,
and maybe it's also an area where the council might want to engage with the insurance companies to look at perhaps a kind of slightly lighter version of a cover,
Because lots of things that come from a tragedy like this.
People who have lost possessions,
which are irreplaceable.
Documentation, all of that.
And I just think that once this is over,
I hope we're going to take a very granular approach
in supporting individuals, particularly individuals
who have lost things like that.
My second point is about joining blocks
You have already covered, but there will be perhaps other
Buildings in the borough with a similar construction style and in way
I'm not saying let's go and identify them because they're only upset people and
Unsettled them, but I do hope that the department is taking a very
Sort of
Strong I mean no a considered approach and making sure that examining them for any obvious
defects that there might be so that there is a kind of feeling that we are reassured.
I don't think we need to share this fact with the residents so much.
If we can have reassurances there.
I would just say that the points you made are ones that obviously make themselves apparent.
And work is underway in the department and across other departments to address them.
So I can reassure you on that point.
Thank you very quickly on the lessons learned process following this.
Obviously respect totally the reasons why we couldn't have a very detailed report this
evening on that.
I have to say I have found the all Councillor written updates by email to be very useful
and informative.
I only wish the Council would do that on more issues that are of significant impact for
the Council and residents in other directories as well.
For the Lessons Learned report, can we commit to seeing the Fire Brigade's report at this committee as part of the paper that you bring in response to that evaluation that you do once we're part of the response stage?
Subject to any restrictions, regulatory or otherwise, on the publication of that report from the Brigade's point of view, I think that would be entirely normal, yeah.
Please, Steve.
I think it's really important to mention that so much of the things that have guided
the principles of how we move forward have been the lessons learned from the Grenfell
inquiry, and there are really good documentation about Council's responses in these kinds
of crises.
I think the thing that is most commendable is the speed in which we're managing to
get offers out.
That is one of the biggest lessons is that people being left in limbo for too long.
And so offering long term placements given that we know that people it's going to be a long time before they can return to their homes.
And that is because of homes coming online, new built homes that give us a bit more flex in the system.
So I think it's that for me, that is one of the hardest things because obviously you have families
where we're going to be able to offer more than one placement, which is unusual from how we would usually do it.
And I think I would kind of ask of the scrutiny board to keep us on our toes on that continuation of chasing up how many people have got the offers.
Because again, coming out of Grenfell is you might get through 80 % of people and they have a secure offer,
but that final group of people whose lives have been through trauma and still need to be found an offer,
and that will be complicated and difficult,
but I think it's something really important
because the journey ends when someone is in a safe home
that they know is theirs for the long term.
So alongside lessons learned, I think
making sure that the follow -up continues
is really, really important.
Can I just briefly respond to that?
Excellent that we're learning the lessons from Grenfell
and incorporating those.
There was actually a question.
Sorry, can I just interject?
Do you mind raising your hand so that I, yeah, of course,
My apologies, yeah.
There was actually a fire,
I think it was about a year ago in the Oldsfield area
that resulted in a school being closed
for a short period of time.
And a lot of residents wrote and felt they needed
to write to councillors to get updates
and then councillors on occasion struggled to get updates.
So I think that's why I think it's really important
for this more significant issue
that we're really on the front foot
and just being really clear about how we're responding
to this when the time is right
when we're in that evaluation stage but yeah welcome the assurances given this evening.

4 Housing Services Activity (Paper No.25-334)

Thank you so we are now going to go on to item four so that's the housing services activity paper
and I understand that we're going to have presentations from this from
three officers tackling different aspects of it.
Thank you chair and good evening everyone. I'm going to start off. So this report is
information about the housing committee on homelessness and the lettings position as
of end of July. And it compares activity to forecasts and targets that were approved in
the cabinet paper number 25257.
In conclusion or summary, it basically shows that homelessness and temporary accommodation
has increased and the supply of properties to let is 91 behind forecast.
So I'm going to start off with homelessness demand.
And so between April and July 2025, we've seen an increase of 1 ,612 applications were
taken, and that's 14 percent higher than the previous year of the same period.
We have seen that May, June, July with 400 applications, and the graph illustrated on
and the right indicates the comparison between 2024 and 2025.
So overall, we've seen an increase in the main reasons of homelessness.
So the main reasons for homelessness for us in Wandsworth are family evictions, domestic
abuse, and end of AST.
So we've seen that increase sharply between April to September 2024 and April to September
2025 in all three reasons of homelessness.
So with abuse, we've seen an increase of 33 .2 % of applications.
End of AST we've seen an increase of 34 .4 % and family evictions 16 .5%.
For periods April to September 2025, it's important to note actually that domestic abuse
overall for this year has become the third biggest reason of homelessness and end of
has become our second largest reason of homelessness.
Moving on to the next slide.
So there's a slight amendment to this slide,
and it's been adjusted on your PACS from the one that was online.
So we've seen 478 new placements in temporary accommodation
from the periods of April to July.
That's an increase of 12 .7 % from the same time last year.
And net admissions, which is new placements minus departures, have increased with 375
this year in comparison to 287 last year in the same period.
Just for the record as well, on the slide you will see that we've got the August figures,
But I've quoted the April to July as well, so you're just aware.
Okay, so we're moving on to some of the prevention outcomes for the end of July.
So within housing services in Wandsworth, we've achieved 174 successful prevention outcomes,
which is 33 .8 % of the target that was set.
So for Stay Put, Stay Safe, we've managed to achieve
40 % of the target as of end of July.
That's basically initiatives where we try and keep
domestic abuse victims and their families at home.
Private sector lettings, we've achieved 34 % of our target
at the end of July.
Housing first models, the rapid rehousing pathways at 50%,
new generation schemes at 20%.
In addition to the internal measures
that we speak about for prevention,
we did also manage to prevent 46 cases
for the end of July as well.
So that brings it to a total of 220 for the end of July.
So, just to give you a bit of context, as well as the work that's done to achieve the
targets that are set, outside these targets, we also do other work or the officers do other
work that actually prevents homelessness as well.
So, to give you a bit of example, sometimes officers are able to negotiate rents with
landlords and increase the term of tenancy so that households and families can remain
home longer.
And another couple of examples that I can give you for this year alone is when there's
been illegal evictions or the landlords change the locks, we've gone back in and basically
negotiated with the landlord, spoken to them, and arranged for locksmiths to go out so that
the residents or the tenants can move back in.
To give you an overall picture as well, I mean, sorry, apologise.
So overall, in terms of our prevention relief outcomes,
we're still increasing as we're moving along.
So to date, we've managed to acquire
321 prevention outcomes.
I'm going to hand over to Gazelle.
Hi, thank you, good evening.
I'm Gazelle Nasser, Assistant Director
of housing allocation to provision.
The next five slides, I'm going to talk
about temporary accommodation and the annual lettings plan
position at the end of July 2025.
So this slide details the temporary accommodation
numbers.
There was 4 ,342 households in the accommodation.
The projected figure for March 2026 is 3 ,995.
So in this four -month period, temporary accommodation
to use rows by 325 for March 2025
when the position was 2017.
Performance regarding bed and breakfast usage
and adherence to the suitability order has been strong
with no instances of using bed and breakfast accommodation
for six weeks or more.
And I can also add that that performance still continues.
86 % of our temporary accommodation units
are self -contained, 67 % situated within Wandsworth
and the neighbouring boroughs.
Moving on to the next slide, this provides an overview of the types of temporary accommodation
that we are using.
This slide presents data as at March, July, compared to the projected usage anticipated
by the end of March.
As you can see, the objective was to decrease the use of nightly paid accommodation.
However, at the end of July, you can note there has been an increase due to the increased
demand for our homelessness services.
The use of B &Bs has decreased since March 2025, while our hostel utilisation has been
maximised.
Moving on to the next slide, this talks about temporary accommodation supply and usage.
As mentioned before in the meeting, we are looking to acquire 186 new leased units in
Tooting.
We are currently in the process of finalising the legal heads of terms and if successful
we are anticipating that we can move the first group of people around mid -sept.
Our private sector leasing scheme, the pipeline stood at 18.
We were actually experiencing more private sector renew at the end of their lease rather
than landlords handing them back.
As you can see, the temporary accommodation void numbers continue to decline.
Moving on to the next slide.
This details the position around the supply of accommodation forecast in the annual lettings
plan.
In paper 25257, a target of 1396 units were approved.
From April to July, 375 properties became available for letting, which resulted in a
shortfall of 91 units at that point in time.
Moving on to the next slide, this breaks down the sources of housing supply.
It compares the action number of vacancies that became available with the month's anticipated
forecast.
The majority of that shortfall of 91 was from the counter stock, primarily due to a shortfall
of the development supply at that point in time, while private sector supply was ahead
of schedule.
My last slide is regarding the rehousing of homeless families specifically.
This is the target was to be our 672 homeless families including 221 private sector offers.
This slide will show that the main homeless queue is currently 34 below our forecast.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to hand you over to Chantelle.
Thank you.
Evening, councillors.
My name is Chantelle Kundishora and I'm the head of service covering for this evening
and street homelessness, rough sleeper activities,
and also I've been asked to cover the finance update.
So in terms of the rough sleeping side of things,
just looking at an overview of the last 12 months,
we've seen 116 individuals accommodated off the street.
50 individuals have been moved into long -term accommodation,
such as private rented, supported,
housing first properties, all offering appropriate wrap around support.
Looking specifically at a snapshot of the period between April and July 2025, for example,
we've seen all the services assisted 23 individuals off the street into accommodation.
Staying on the street homelessness side of things and some of the work we have been doing or are doing.
We have, as you know, been leading on the introduction of the new street homelessness
assessment hub, which is essentially an opportunity for the council and commission services to
forge services that work in a very different way.
Having services co -located in one place, supporting people who have experienced street homelessness,
giving that wraparound support around them
all under one roof.
So our service will follow what we're calling
a safe and beyond barriers model.
What do I mean by that?
Well essentially it means we will foster
stronger collaboration between teams,
or across teams, working with our clients.
I will note, we will be referring to our clients
as community members.
So if you see us coming and referring to community members, we are referring to our street homelessness clients
It's so important that they feel they are part of the community
And so the language has to fit the drivers of what we are trying to do moving forward in addition to that
We want to ensure that our community members can reach the support they need when and where it suits them
We also want them to flourish so that means supporting community members not just to survive
but really to thrive, building on strengths
and their aspirations.
And of course we want to deliver fair, inclusive,
and trauma -informed services to meet them where they are.
On the second side, which I said beyond barriers,
what does this mean?
And I think we've said this a couple of times
when we've come to meetings such as these.
We mean there's no wrong door.
Everywhere you go, our services will be integrated.
we will work together to ensure there's continuity and there isn't any fragmentation.
No one should have to repeat their storey. I think for all of us that's one of the worst
things you can experience. I know if I was somewhere and I had to repeat my storey to
all of you, I would disengage. It's even more pertinent for people who've experienced street
homelessness, who feel they're on the margins of society having to repeat the same storey
to different professionals.
We want to do away with that.
What is also very critical for us as a service
is having a trauma -informed service.
That is very critical.
We also want our service to be peer -led.
So we've done a lot of work working with people who,
either professionals who work with our community members,
but equally people with lived experience.
That's absolutely important in terms of creating and designing the service that we're looking to
develop so, you know ensuring there's community engagement ensuring there's reflective learning and innovation is the drive once the
Key driver in terms of this model that we are talking about this evening
and then of course finally
I've been asked to give the finance update and the current forecast for quarter one is that direct homelessness?
costs are showing an overspend of just over £900 ,000. What this highlights is the potential
worsening of the situation in the coming months, particularly when looked at in the context
of rises and homelessness against the pipeline of new properties coming in, especially for
our largest families and households. Of course, this is not a challenge you need to just ones
with Council. We know that boroughs not only in London but also nationally are facing similar
overspent pressures.
To conclude, there is a lot of significant work going on across boroughs to try and pool
ideas for potential solutions, ways to mitigate this and to lobby the government collectively
for greater assistance in various forms.
That's the end of our presentation.
My colleagues and I will take any questions you may have.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
That was a really interesting presentation on a very serious issue.
I liked about the dispute resolution between tenants and landlords, the transformative
of services, the person -centred approach,
and the opportunity of innovation.
But so looking at hands around the room,
I've got Councillor Stock, Maurice McLeod, Councillor
Corner, and Councillor Hamilton.
Thank you, Chair.
I have a question on homelessness demand,
and then some questions as we get further into the pack
on what we're doing in terms of the supply
of temporary accommodation that we comply.
But just first on the homelessness demand,
thanks very much for the update in terms of the top three
demands and reasons why residents are making
applications for temporary accommodations,
family evictions, domestic abuse,
and of their short -short -hold tenancy.
Just you said that there have been increases in all three
areas, and those are the top three.
Could you give us a bit more detail there
in terms of what the proportion of those are of the total.
So as I understand it, there are 1 ,612.
You've given us those three, but is that a half, three quarters,
and just anything else on reasons and drivers for demand?
Yeah, sure.
So I had the figures broken down in terms of April to September.
So for abuse in comparison, so in 2024, we had 322 cases.
In 2025, we had 429, so that was an increase of 33 .2%.
End of AST was 404 for 2024,
543 for 2025, an increase of 34 .4%.
and family evictions, it was 625 in 2024 and 728 for 2025, and that's a 16 .5 % increase.
So for abuse, we have always, I guess, had lots of clients approach from different borrowers.
That trend still remains the same. And for end of ASTs, we're getting a lot of landlords...
Sorry to interrupt, can I just ask you to spell out what end of AST is?
I apologise.
Yes, sorry.
It's end of assured short -hold tenancy.
So yes, as I was saying, for the trend that we're seeing at the moment is that the private,
a bit similar to last year really, private landlords are expecting and wanting more rental
increases of course where we try to negotiate and agree a new term we do.
But some trend that is actually happening is that some private landlords are leaving
the market.
I couldn't tell you exactly what those figures are at the moment but could be provided.
And family evictions.
There seems to be, similar to last year,
complex needs of vulnerable adults,
and they can't remain home any longer.
So the support needs are quite high.
So families are finding that quite challenging.
And the other main reason is financial.
So financial implications and I guess cost of living,
and affordability for keeping somebody at home.
Those are the two main reasons that I know
that we're getting a lot of approaches.
And of course there's conflict as well
that arises because of those needs and situations.
Got Councillor McLeod.
Hello, and thank you for quite a comprehensive report.
It always feels like temporary accommodation is quite a swimming against the tide.
It always feels like we're trying to do loads and there's just loads and loads more pressure
coming on.
And so one of the things you mentioned, I'm not sure if you misspoke or if I just misheard,
I understand of course that we need to, where possible, try to, you know, someone's presenting
as if they may be made homeless because of family disputes or domestic violence where
and you want to go in and try to avoid that happening,
can you talk a little bit about how we might link up
with other bits of the council?
I'm a little bit worried about safeguarding.
I'm a little bit worried about talking,
some families or some situations do need to be broken apart
and it's not just, I get it that we have to tick the box
and we have to chase these numbers.
I just wanna know what do we do to make sure
that we're not putting people into further harm.
Yeah, so for victims of domestic abuse, we do conduct some risk assessment tools, basically
to see how high risk or low they are.
And then they're passed on to multi -agency referral meetings, so we discuss the case
through there.
But we also do safeguard and refer to children's services and adult social care.
That's also for the complex need clients.
Usually with the complex need clients, they do have CMHT that are working with them.
So we do link in with them to find out what support's already been provided, how can we up the support if necessary.
So next I have Councillor Corner.
Thank you Chair and thank you for this paper which does provide a fair amount of context
although it would be good to have the financial update presented in the normal financial format
I think just so we can see the trends over time.
If you'd like to comment on that in answer to this question then please feel free to
do so.
But what I also would like to hear more about in response to this paper is what actions that the council and this directorate in
particular is going to take in order to
Meet these targets which across multiple different areas covered in this paper
The council is falling well short of its target and particularly on
Preventions which I'm looking at here. I mean to achieve only 33 % of the target does those I think require
for significant explanation, but also a plan
for improvement to be articulated here.
So I'd like to, I think that's probably a question
for response from officers, but I'd also love to hear
from the cabinet member about what actual policy changes
this administration can make to actually make a dent
on these targets, which are being significantly missed.
Thank you, Councillor.
Just to clarify, on the prevention targets,
and I appreciate the way it's presented,
But those targets are pretty much bang on
Because it's 33 percent 30 and just under 34 percent after four months of the year. So that's how it's expressed
So we're we're kind of on track there and as you can see 174 out of 515
I'm in the general position on this
And I've said this before probably you're bored of hearing me say
But this is a perpetual game of running faster to keep up
So demand is spiking at the moment.
The numbers in there are very frightening.
We've not exceeded 400 presentations a month often,
and now we seem to be routine.
So there is that going on.
We're actually doing pretty well against the individual target
set.
But as I say, we're one step forward, two step back
type of scenario.
There are some things that this paper highlights
that we're doing.
We've referenced the schema tooting.
Obviously, we've not got it yet, so we've not begun to plan the filling up of it, the
letting of it, but we will look to prioritise the more expensive forms of temporary accommodation
and prioritise where we can, people placed furthest away to minimise the damage and the
inconvenience and real implications of being placed a long way out of your home borough.
So that will have a positive impact.
We took a report to Cabinet earlier in the year about bringing online our digital online
temporary accommodation occupancy checker, to give its correct name.
We're about to move in the next four to six weeks into a live pilot with a small sample
of residents, and then we're aiming to roll that out through the balance of the year and
probably now a little bit into the next financial year.
So those are just two examples of where we're doing.
But on the first point, we are actually on target with our prevention performance.
Matthew, how do we solve the homelessness crisis?
What is the supply that we need?
New council housing, what do you continue to vote against?
New council housing.
So the Thousand Homes Programme is us bolstering our supply of council housing.
That means that the pipeline in which we can get people through into our regeneration programmes, which you are also campaigning against on the Alton
New council housing which allows again for transfers of those overcrowded local families to move through the system
Driving up standards in the private rented sector. There are things that are locally we can do to try and
Stop illegal evictions, which is one of the main reasons that people come to the council
But there are things that we campaign on nationally that again we've yet to have support from you on so
We're a council that actively campaigns for rent control because the termination of those assured short hold tenancies
Is one of the main drivers and we've seen it actually go up to second place now
Ending section 21 with big support of that the government's going to be bringing that in
Again that drive of stopping people from being pushed out of the private rented sector and having to come to the council
So I feel like as an authority we continually bring to this committee
policies that are explicitly designed to try and end the temporary accommodation scandal and
But the obvious answer is the supply of council housing, because that is what is missing.
Why is 95 % of our stock over 25 years old?
Because we stopped building council housing for decades, and it's been a massive disaster.
Now there are financial measures that we're taking because we are aware that we can't
build at the speed necessary to stem the tide.
That's what Dave's talking about.
So our new app is a way to try and end the amount of voids in which we're paying for
nightly paid accommodation.
So finding where a tenant maybe isn't staying in their temporary accommodation and then
having a conversation with them, a caring conversation that isn't about them losing
the duty but about finding out why they're not in that accommodation.
And then schemes like the Tooting Hotel, which are controversial.
We've had two public meetings on it.
There is a lot of anxiety around that, but we sit with the community and we say we're
doing these things for reasons of not just kind of the financial savings to the council,
but also the wraparound support we can give those people who are facing that homelessness.
Because again, alongside the kind of financial implications is the impact on the person who
receives that temporary accommodation.
And we know that often they are now being placed out of the borough because of the cost
pressures so that that shooting hotel will really allow us to keep people in the borough.
But we regularly bring policies that are explicitly aimed at reducing this and you regularly vote
Against them. So if you would continue to support our council house building programme
I think we'd be able to get on top of this a lot quicker
You wish to respond I think if we look at the throughput of planning committees
And the amount of our development that is happening in the borough and the rate at which that's dried up
then I think we'll you know, we
it's very clear that there there isn't enough being built in in the in the
housing provision and across a range of 10 years in order to meet the challenge of the
housing crisis.
On the temporary accommodation piece, that isn't going to make a dent on this in terms
of the numbers.
We need much more to even threaten to meet these targets.
And I think that we need to be much more ambitious
in the way we do that and looking at outside of the box
on the range of solutions that we can bring to do this.
So for example, looking at accommodation further afield,
looking at cheaper accommodation
that is still up to the right standard,
things like that in order to support progress
on these measures.
On the homelessness piece, the Lavender Hill Homeless Hub,
we've been looking at that.
Sorry, Councillor Colner.
This is my last point.
That being opened.
I can't have too many points.
I need to question.
That being opened in autumn 2025, it is now autumn 2025.
And I know that the community in the area and many of us here in the council have been
waiting for that to open and come online for some time now in order to help meet this challenge
on homelessness.
So are we able to get a commitment today as to when that will be actually open because
is now due to open.
Okay, so there are points there about whether we should be more ambitious with housing,
whether we should, Councillor Cawlan is suggesting that people should be housed further afield,
and then yeah, it's about the date of the opening.
Okay, thank you, I'll try to address those points.
I think, so just to mention, Councillor Dickerson mentioned no -fault evictions and the Renters'
I was in a meeting with a senior official from MHCLG last week.
There was a comment elsewhere at the moment, but we touched on this.
And I asked that question, when is this change going to take effect?
And I got an unsatisfactory answer of not sure, but soon.
So you can judge that as you want, but my hunch is it will be coming in this quarter
or maybe early in the new year, but certainly within this financial year.
And as we have heard, the loss of an assured short -hold tenancy through no -fault evictions
is our second highest, biggest cause of homelessness.
So that will make a big impact.
And that's a national thing that both as an officer level and political level has been
lobbied for.
The point about placing further away would be beneficial for financial reasons, leaving
aside the impact I mentioned on the families.
However, and I won't go into all of the complexities of it, but suffice to say, it is a very complex
legal landscape to do it.
There was a Supreme Court judgement on this a few years ago involving Westminster where
they placed a family, quite a vulnerable family, into Milton Keynes.
So the regular, and the other thing to bear in mind, and it's sort of often overlooked,
The legislation itself places a positive duty on the local authority to provide accommodation within our own district as far as is practicable.
Yeah? So we've got that target duty and the case law around it makes avoiding that target duty very complex and time consuming.
And the courts are all over this. I can't remember which borough, but I think it was Southeast London Borough, recently got quite a beating in the Court of Appeal.
So it's not as simple as it is.
And I also think it's important to reiterate that in terms of this council, we have a consent policy.
We do not send people outside of Greater London unless they consent to it, except in very rare circumstances.
Because these are ones with residents, they deserve, it's heartbreaking that we have to place people in neighbouring boroughs.
We do because of how bad things have got, but absolutely, it's not something we do willingly.
And the aim is to try and keep as many people as close to the borough as possible.
That is the drive of this council.
Right, okay, so yes, Councillor Hamilton, thank you.
Thank you very much and I apologise, I appreciate the discussions moved on slightly, but I just
wanted to make a couple of comments about the format of the paper and I obviously do
appreciate the presentation that officers have given this evening and the significant
amount of additional information that we've been provided with.
But I would give a plea, I think, for future meetings, in that I found this document in
honesty slightly frustrating, in that there was plenty of information inside it.
But in terms of the granularity of some of the information that we were given, for example,
about some of the reasons underpin the prevention outcomes, I think it would have been quite
useful to have a bit more of that information in advance to allow us to prepare questions,
think a bit more about the issue rather than having essentially statistics being read to
us this evening.
So if we could potentially do some more thinking about I think the depth of information, the
amount of statistics in particular that we're provided with, I think that would lead to
a better discussion.
I think if only for the point that Councillor McLeod made, which is that when we look at
what underlies these issues, we need to discuss as councillors what the broader solutions
might be, whether that's actually involving colleagues who are working on education issues,
whether there's even transport related matters to any of this.
So I think the more information we could be provided with as opposed to just the rather
top line nature of this report, I think would be better for all concerned and would lead
to a better discussion in this committee.
But a couple of questions on the substantive nature of the report, if that's okay.
They relate to specifics.
As I mentioned in a meeting with officers, it would be quite interesting to understand
where possible.
I understand that some individuals who do apply for homelessness assistance are from
outside the borough, but it would be great to understand the particular wards where this
problem is at its greatest.
You can see there are any particular issues in terms of council policy that might feed
into that.
It would also be quite useful, I think, to understand where people are coming from outside
the borough and where are they being drawn from.
Why are they applying in Wandsworth?
What are the underlying reasons?
Is it due to a pre -existing link to the borough through family?
Is it because we're seen as a more attractive area?
What are the reasons for that?
I think we should understand that as a committee.
And one final point, if I may, at the end of the report it makes reference to the work
going on across boroughs to pool ideas for potential solutions and mitigations to some
of these issues.
It would be tremendous to understand, you know, some of the initial thinking about what
those pooled ideas and mitigations are.
And perhaps we could get an update on that at future meetings, because I understand this
is not only a London -wide but a UK -wide challenge.
Thank you.
I just wanted to take the opportunity to apologise to Councillor Caulnay because I didn't answer
your question about the opening of the hub.
So my latest understanding, and I'm sure you'll understand, on a complex building project
of that magnitude that's combining effectively an office and a residential element, there's
been some lumps in it.
And as we know with large building projects, getting 95 % of it done can be easy, and that
last 5 % is tricky. However, so we've got those final things. Staff, the first staff
occupied it and began working from there today. It's a bit kind of rough and ready for them,
but that's a milestone. We're hoping to have it open as a working office fully in the next
four to six weeks. So technically I think that is still autumn, depends how you measure
I suppose but yeah, but it's it's getting close to the finish line now
Yeah
Counsellor Hamilton's and the questions. Oh, yeah
It's been it's been a long long long few weeks
Yes, so what you're referring to there is the is the catchily titled I think ending homelessness accelerator programme
which has got some coverage.
The meeting I referred to earlier with the MHCLG London Council's official was on that
subject.
There will be announcements coming out in the next few days about some funding for that.
And the model, or the favoured model, sees a south, sorry, a subregional response because
we still find ourselves in a position where sometimes our temporary accommodation teams are in competition with other boroughs for the same accommodation, for example.
So it's all about joint procurement, cost efficiencies, economies of scale, and all of that thing, which makes perfect sense.
So that's a moving thing, and I'm sure we will be coming back to committee with updates on how we're going to be involved in that going forward.
Councillor Conlon, I've actually got quite a few people who'd like to come in, so would
you be very, very brief?
So at Finance Committee we learned that the money that the council contributes to London
councils on issues like, to tackle issues like homelessness, is one of the highest amounts
that any council in London gives to London councils,
yet we get disproportionately less back
from London councils.
Now, I'm not sure if that's a fact that he's aware of.
It's something we've had to freedom of information request
from London councils.
But the proportionality is not favourable to what it's worth.
Is the council kind of lobbying London councils
to get a better deal on the grants funding?
Because we do have particularly acute housing pressures
in this borough, is there an opportunity to get a better deal for the large amount of
money we're giving to London councils proportionate to other councils?
If you could refer me to the detail of that, it's not something I recognise off, you know,
giving it for the first time.
Yeah membership of London councils and then London councils gives grant funding back to
boroughs on kind of cross -London issues like homelessness.
It sounds like that's...
The London councils grant schemes.
Is that something we will come back to?
Our relationship with London councils is very helpful because it allows us, I mean, I've
been to numerous workshops, we can look into the grant arrangements.
Well, I need to go and look at the detail because it's the first time I've heard of
it.
London councils, the tragedy of the commons is what is facing London councils, is that
We are individual units that are trying to procure against what is almost like a monopoly
selling power of landlords that hold all the cards on a thing that everyone is competing
for.
So the meetings are really, really helpful.
They give us a single voice when we go in and approach government.
So I think that it is an incredibly valuable organisation to be part of.
They also have been very, very useful in ideas around large purchases into different accommodation
and also understanding what other councils are doing.
We get heads up now when other councils are procuring or trying to procure temporary accommodation
in our own borough and things like that and we can have negotiations around that.
So it's an organisation that is worth being part of.
I can definitely go away and look at grant funding arrangements, opportunities and specific
schemes.
Thank you. So, Councillor Farrah Tharaj.
Thank you, Chair. I also have similar questions on our prevention outcomes and what we're
doing to bring down the homelessness numbers, but I know the office has already answered
that in our update and so did Mr. Wurf. I actually had a follow -up question to Councillor
Stock's initial question. I think you said ASTs coming to an end was the second highest
reason for homelessness. Obviously, with the Renters Writers' Bill, ASTs will be completely
abolished. So once it does, once the bill becomes a law, will we, can we expect our
homelessness numbers to reduce or what will the impact of that be if he could, I don't
know if he could, I'm not sure what impact would the Renters Writers Bill have on that
specific kind of cause?
Well, hopefully it'll give more security to our tenants in regards to knowing that they
can stay longer because landlords will have to go to court in order to evict.
I mean, we don't know what the actual law will actually really bring out, but it should
bring a lot more security for our tenants, you know, so that they can live there longer.
They have a place called home.
But also with landlords as well.
I mean, I think there is an ethical aspect of it as well.
I mean, with landlords, there's a lot more that they've got to do in order to ensure that the standards are higher.
So it should be much better quality of housing.
There are cost elements to the landlord too.
So obviously it's challenging for some private landlords if let's say they're finding a struggle.
and some land rules probably are, but it's something, you know, that is being looked
into and we're fully taking it on board and we think it's a good thing.
Great. Councillor Fraser.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair. My question actually leads on from that and I think I welcome that
update. As someone who's rented in this borough for 15 years in variable standards of housing
in that time I think I welcome any protection that can be given to
residents in our borough and especially in my ward you know there's and commonly
amongst residents in Wandsworth I think there's about a third of the residents
in my ward who rent and myself included so I kind of welcome the introduction of
that act but also the you know being one of the wards that has now got the
landlord licencing scheme in Wandsworth because I think so many of us have faced
those challenges either from quality of housing and the damper mould that I've
experienced in like my first flat when I didn't know where to go to you know being luckily
I've not faced the prospect of being chucked out on a section 21
But you know actually living in a place that feels like home is so important to so many of us who?
Would own if we could afford to but just leading on from councillor for after hours a question and the comments you've made mr
Worth and I'm interested in your view on what?
Protections the app will offer once with residents, and how it might help alleviate pressures for the council
Okay, thank you. So it's well since I looked at it, so I'll just give the headline impact.
So at the moment, providing your tenancy is set up lawfully, correctly, there's about
13 things a landlord has to do, but they're pretty standard, you can be given for no reason
at all a Section 21 notice, and that your tenancy will end and you will lose that home
if the landlord proceeds down that line. It's a mandatory ground. The only ways it can be
stopped is by procedural points that really only delay.
If landlords messed it up, they can do another one
sort of thing.
The main change is that the grounds for possession
will be amended to, as I understand it,
and Ms. Choke, Ms. Condishaw, probably closer to this
than I am, is where the landlord wants to sell the property
or where the landlord wants to reoccupy the property
Or for a family member, indeed.
On the selling of it, and so on and so forth, there is a sanction in the legislation, and
we will have to track this, that if the landlord tells us that, or tells the court that, and
evicts, and then doesn't sell it, doesn't list it for sale, or doesn't occupy it, there
are financial penalties that can be applied on application.
So it's a much more tenant -friendly framework.
There's also additional powers that I understand it for rent repayment orders, and it's a mixed
package.
Things, for example, are right to have pets and so on and so forth.
So it is a progressive measure.
It should, over time, mean that that second highest reason for homelessness shrinks back
significantly.
And if that does occur, then obviously the pressures on temporary accommodation we've
discussed tonight should mitigate.
There isn't any research that I've seen, but our professional suspicion is that landlords
are, in some instances, but in increasing numbers, erring on the side of caution and
serving a notice in advance of those changes.
That would not be surprising, and we think that when the legislation takes effect soon,
that will be a temporary phenomena.
So we're going to go to Councillor stock.
Thank you, chair.
Just on the homelessness hub, I just wanted to really comment, I suppose, to say really,
really welcome the approach here and the co -location of services.
I think it's really great that we're moving in that way to be serving, as you say, the
community members who are in need. Really great to hear that staff are in
post. I suppose it would be good to have some assurance that in terms of
some of those other agencies who are hoping to locate their also on board in
terms of recruiting and making sure that stuff for on site because I know
in terms of other multi agency teams in the council that sometimes has been a
challenge. My actual questions really are on page 11 just around the temporary
accommodation and how we are kind of housing residents who have the full
full duty so really welcome cabinet members comments around our ambitious
home building council home building programme you know I'm really pleased
within my own ward that a few few months ago with open brawn mansions with 126
families getting brand new properties that are you know absolutely great
condition properties and really welcome progress towards block six in terms of
the Winstanley regeneration team and the wider piece of work we're doing to make
sure that we've got neighbourhoods that residents can be proud of as alongside
affordable homes that they can live in. But the biggest challenge really it
seems to me is some of the volume of the nightly paid accommodation that we're
having to use in terms of our temporary accommodation and that is increasing so
I just wondered about some of the other strategies
we are using to decrease the proportion
of nightly paid accommodations.
So first of all, kind of around our approach
to the council leasing scheme.
So just a little bit of information
about what work we've done to ensure
that we are benchmarking that offer
to make sure it really is the best offer that we can provide.
And I understand that we still ask for landlords
to provide their own gas safety certificate, for example, and electrical safety certificates.
And I'd be interested to know whether there are any barriers to landlords handing over
the management of their property that we could possibly remove to increase the number of
properties there that we could be using within our local community, because I also think
as the cabinet member said, that's really important to find homes in Wandsworth.
And then secondly, just a little bit more about our strategy and ambition in terms of buybacks
and what opportunities there might be for us to
speak with national government to kind of get some additional funding to have an even more ambitious approach to buyback.
Again, within my own world,
I know that we have successfully managed to buy back properties that we usually for temporary accommodation as part of the Winstanley regeneration.
And it would just be interesting to know
The next thing we're going to do is go into a project or an industry plan that involves
that are quite important that will give a little bit more stability.
We're also trying to look at our landlord offer.
We look at it all the time to see what is it that landlord will take.
Sometimes we think, okay, when they're thinking of giving the property back
and saying, well, we want to sell it now,
we think, well, what will it take for us to retain it?
And they will say, could you up the rent?
So we would think, okay, it's more costly to use nightly paid
or increase the rate, that's what we would do.
And we try and work more flexibly with landlords now
in terms of taking on their properties.
We work with landlords.
We work with the National Landlord's Association.
We do landlord forums.
We're going to try and develop the landlord portal in terms
of the knowledge and trying to make it for landlords
to give their talks.
We've got dedicated to that.
We are reliant on landlords coming to us,
But we want to try and again do a new publicity campaign,
because we did that last year, and we got landlords,
and what's the best way of doing that?
Where do we do that?
But it's a little bit of a market
which is a change, because maybe the change is sometimes
we don't want to give them.
But we're having a guaranteed rent.
That's always a rather, hopefully, a good incentive.
We want to make sure that we say the benefits of doing that,
and making sure even if it's vacant,
and we hand it back in good condition.
Lots of things that we do need to do,
but often what will happen is
when families come to us in an emergency on the day,
often we end up placing in an emergency.
That's under review all the time.
We look at any costly accommodation.
We'll move people.
We'll make sure if we have to,
we sometimes convert temporary accommodation units
within our own stock
because it's stock retained and within the borough.
So we're looking at all the time
in terms of the better experience for our residents.
Thank you. So I've got two questions, and then I think we'll, yeah, which is going to be for
Councillor Covington and then Councillor Graham, and then I think we'll call us down this paper,
move on just some questions about the time. So yes.
Some difficulties with this paper, it's a bit like what Councillor Hamilton said.
A lot of this is based on a paper that went to the Cabinet 25257.
Until I got this paper, I didn't know about the existence of paper 25257.
So I think it's one of those democratic deficit points here.
Can we be told as members of this committee, papers that relate to our responsibility and
functions when they go to the Cabinet, that this is what they are?
And so we are at least we have the sight of reading them and knowing them.
None of us are on the Cabinet Department Council at Ickedom.
So in a sense, that's one of the shortcomings of this paper, because we don't have the background
document with us.
We have to find out and so on.
The other thing is that in terms of the information in the paper, the slide presentation, is that
I always find it difficult to follow slides when there are two versions on the same day,
because somebody's missed out something else.
This is what's happened today,
and it happened at our working group meeting as well.
And then in the presentation,
data and figures come out which are not in here,
and we're scribbling them down to try and remember them.
So in a sense, it ill informs our consideration
of the debate, and I do hope that both
you, Chair, and Mr. Kelly will take note of that and improve on it and perhaps ask the
Edmond Department to say how best to present things to the health philtre members rather
than sort of be difficult.
The paper has two basic points, isn't it?
One is that homelessness is going up and the other is that the supply side is not keeping
up with our expectations.
It's going up and there is very little in terms of, I think, the granularity of the
causes of it.
I got some of it today, but even below the headline figure of about a third of the cases
are domestic violence.
I mean, presumably there are inter -family domestic violence, but there are also violence
from landlords, perhaps.
I mean, none of that is there.
There's mention of illegal evictions and I think it would be useful to have the data
how much and what the council is doing about supporting illegal eviction, it's not in here.
And on the supply side, of course the one bit of the supply side that we didn't oppose,
which is the council housing in -stream of which 91 are still awaited.
So in a sense there's nothing in here to tell us what is the cause of the delay in delivery of those 91 units that are mentioned in the paper.
Two further points, Chair.
On the Lavender Hill thing, I hope at a future point you will give us a report either to
this committee or a note to us to give us the reasons of the delay, the cost variation
from the budget to send.
There must be a budgetary drift, I think, if it's gone on for longer.
I do think that we need to know what caused the delay, what's the cost of that delay,
and what's the cost overrun on the construction or adaptation
side of it.
And my final point, which is about the budget,
there's a $901 ,000 overspend in the last quarter.
The second quarter's just ended.
I know it's a bit early.
But can somebody give a stab and say where that figure, $901 ,000
figure might stand at?
Because there must be ways of forecasting figures.
if paper's full of forecasts of one sort or the other,
what is the forecast there?
Do you want to deal with that?
Yes, thank you for your contribution though
about the level of detail that you'd like to see
and there has been some really informative contributions
into this committee about that.
So I do take,
so I do take that.
Thank you very,
Thanks very much.
But please, yes.
Thanks for that feedback.
We did ask in the covering paper to get that type of feedback.
I guess there's a balance here between killing you with PowerPoint and having, you know, 50 things and maybe missing some stuff.
But we'll happily take that away and look at where it can be improved.
On the financial, on the hub, yes, there will be a report on that.
Obviously, the spend and the timelines under the contract
will be looked at and we'll happily share that
with the committee once we've got it open
and which will be our priority at the moment.
On the financial things, on the budget position,
I would need to go away and cheque the precise number.
We've definitely closed month four,
the end of July position.
And obviously, as you know, that goes through a process
that means those numbers are probably checked
about eight times by six different people or something.
So I'll have to come back to you on that.
But a month for the overspend had increased
to beyond a million pounds.
OK, thank you.
Quickly about the new legislation
that has been talked about.
Is it likely that when passed, it'll
come into force straightaway?
Or are there going to be various statutory instruments that
are going to be necessary?
And will there be any court procedures that need to be changed in order to let the legislation to come to a thing?
Because there's one thing passing the act, the other one is actually to, I mean in a sense, to switch the light on.
Yeah, I mean I can't comment on this particular bit of legislation, but my understanding is what you've outlined.
that there will be a notification period where presumably the Secretary of State has got
delegated powers, secondary powers to say this will happen on this date and they'll
publish regulations.
I don't think it would be that much, I don't think it needs that long.
Sometimes these can be laid before Parliament and sit there for seven days and then it's
live so.
Thank you for that question, if I can just remind you, please put your questions via
me.
Thank you very much.
I don't mind doing it, but I don't actually have to.
It's very appreciated, if you do it makes it easier to manage the meeting.
No, I really do take my own rights as a backbencher much more seriously about this.
I have a right to approach Mr Werth directly about anything.
I don't have to share it with anyone,
but as it so happens on the Working Group, I shared with Councillor Stock.
I don't need reminding of what I need to do. Thank you very much.
Mr Chair, Mr Wirth, can you just tell me your thing?
Yeah, so...
Apologise.
That's fine.
Okay, so we'll go to our last question which is with Councillor Graham.
Thanks, Chair. I really do concur with what Councillor Vinge is saying as well as Councillor Hamilton too,
as regards to the paper and the lack of information about the budgets.
I'm actually looking at page 17. I think it's fantastic the Street Homelessness Service.
It's like a revolving door and this is a great need.
I know that you're going to have a big paper, but I would very much like nuts and bolts
information.
I actually experienced taking a homeless person who was really found in a dreadful state to
the Putney, you know, the Putney Housing Centre.
And I felt, I felt very belittled.
The door shut and I was there for three hours with this lady.
Okay, the outcome was a good outcome
that you did find temporary accommodation
for her and ultimately help.
So on that point, I'd very much like to know first point of call
such as the housing centre.
As regards to the actual revolving door,
this is fantastic as Lavender Hill.
I would very much like to know how the management will be,
but how many officers, and also will there be different
virus, because I'm sure they'll want to use the services,
because I'm sure it'll be good.
And also, who is going to pay?
Is it going to be the GLA or council or office,
or will it be other services?
Because other departments will be involved.
You know, medical services, dentists, GPs,
and mental health.
Will they actually come to the hub?
You know, when the, I call them patients,
because I used to be a nurse, the clients actually come in.
It's the actual movement.
And I know you're going to do wonderful things,
but it's the actual nitty -gritty that I would very much
like to know about first port of call, management, how many
offices.
If there are going to be beds, who's going to manage that?
If the boroughs which are looking at cancer,
they're not going to be rich.
Let's have it for Wandsworth.
And who pays?
And of course, that's where the budget would have come in.
and of course the important medical GPs, dentists and things like that.
If you could answer those little bullet points, it would be great.
Councillor, thank you for your question.
In terms of the services that will work from the hub,
if you remember we said the services will be located at the hub.
So clinicians, there's a clinic on site, outreach services.
So SPEA, one of our commission partners, will be part of this.
So among those, in recent conversations,
Citizens Advice, for example, have asked to be part
of the hub to offer debt advice,
other sort of advisory services.
What we want to achieve is the wrap -around service
in one place.
Now, it's a 24 -hour service, so it's planned.
We have a dedicated hub assessment manager,
my colleague, Gary Clements, and a deputy manager
who will run the hub on a daily basis.
We've got the co -located teams,
Bea a part of that co -location.
And in the evening, the hub is manned.
So it's a 24 hour service, constantly manned.
And so in terms of the, I think you asked about
the financial arrangements.
Yes, it was very hard for me to judge
what was happening at all.
I think because Mr. Worth rightly said, I mean it's very difficult in a presentation
of this type to really go into the nitty gritty and the nuts and bolts, but by all means I
mean I think we're happy to provide how this will be funded, etc. in terms of the
monetary arrangements for it.
Would there be beds there?
Eleven beds and four safe seats and potential severe weather emergency protocol periods.
for bunk beds in the basement.
So it is definitely 11 bedded.
Options for couples, so that's also there.
Options for people who are wheelchair dependent.
So it is quite a sizable space.
But just to be clear, it is a move on centre.
It's not a forever.
It's a revolving door.
Yes, so it's about putting the intensive support
around the person for that period of time
and then assist them with the appropriate pathways to move on.
Thank you.
I could just add, I should have, well maybe it should have been in there, but through
Councillor Davies, we will be once we're opened and settled in as it were, be offering members
of the committee the opportunity to visit.
Probably not all of you at the same time, because you know, it would get a bit odd,
but you're certainly very welcome to come down and see it in practise, and all those
questions, hopefully will be answered.
If I may, are residents who are living around
the homeless hub in Lavender Hill,
will they be informed about the imminent opening
of the, because there's been a lot of controversy
at the moment with residents just being left in the dark
about the opening of the homeless hub.
I don't think it's fair to say left in the dark.
Are we on our second, third public meeting coming up?
That's in the diary.
Residents are invited to visit the hub as well.
We are in the process, so the forum has agreed
that it's turned in reference, so there's a residence
forum, it's agreed to turn in reference.
I'm chairing it for the meantime, and then we'll see
how we go within the year.
The aim is to pass on to residents so that they have
a means to which, if they want, they can chair the meeting
and set their agenda.
We have a set of KPIs that we measure.
So I think the resident engagement, while at the beginning there was kind of, as always,
a bit of kind of, oh, this has come out of nowhere, where has this come from, I think
we're getting to the stage now whereby people are feeling ownership and feel like they will
be able to not just participate with the service, but shape and feedback and adapt and improve.
So your colleagues in Underwood have attended those meetings, and the aim is to, again,
and set up a system whereby I chair it for about a year
and then hopefully a resident can take over
and look up like an autonomous forum.
I think the key thing is that residents
who are living in the area need to be written to.
I know that has happened before, after pushing.
It needs to happen again as the hub comes online
and in its first months of operation, I think.
Thank you for the very good discussion,
questions there and the responses.
So we're moving on to item five.
Now this is about the housing associations.

5 Housing Associations (Paper No.25-335)

Thank you, Chair.
Good evening, everyone.
It's nice to meet you all.
My name is Marcus Shocher.
I'm the head of housing policy and performance at Wandsworth Borough Council.
So just in terms of the report, it is concerning an audit
that we are proposing to do on our four main housing associations in Wandsworth.
It's based principally on the regulatory social housing's own framework.
That has been in place for quite some time now, but
more recently it's been expanded to include local authorities.
As part of that expansion, it includes four consumer standards to accompany the existing value for
money and viability standards that have been in place for housing associations for over a decade.
So the consumer standards were introduced in 2023.
Two of the landlords subject to this audit have already had a regulatory verdict against
these.
We'll talk about the housing associations in scope shortly.
And I should just say, since the papers were published, there's actually been an additional
standard agreed by the government based on a consultation that was undertaken last spring.
And this is gonna be called the competency
and conduct standard.
And that will have a focus on a workforce.
It applies to, as with all the other standards,
it applies to all large landlords,
including professionalisation of key personnel.
That will be applicable from 2026.
So the regulator of social housing's approach
will inform our audits.
We're proposing to evaluate performance
across all of the standards that the providers
are required to deliver against.
The audit will include a summary of delivery and it will highlight areas of good practise
but also those requiring improvement.
The audit will analyse performance across the tenant satisfaction measures that were
introduced in 2023 as part of the transparency influence and accountability consumer standard
and it's a legal requirement for all landlords, councils and housing associations to publish
those annually and to make sure that they are publicly available.
What we are proposing in terms of comparisons is that the audit will have a read across
against the G -15 benchmark.
So the G -15 is the collection of the largest landlords, Housing Association landlords in
the country.
We will also benchmark regionally and against the council's own performance as a landlord.
We'll be able to undertake year on year comparisons to see if performance has worsened or improved.
Where downgrades have taken place and any of the standards, we will highlight these as well as put a summary of the reasons for those downgrades.
We'll also review other material as well, including web pages and annual reports published by the landlords.
We will be looking to see how easy it is to find policies and information that residents may find useful.
So just in terms of the landlords that we are including as part of this audit,
in ones if we have four, the big four that are responsible for managing more than two -thirds of our stocks.
So these are Wandle, L &Q, Peabody, and Southern, who are our largest housing association landlord.
And we do have existing arrangements in place which are included in the reports.
And these are a series of meetings that we can discuss specific issues,
opportunities for collaboration, and also development -focused meetings.
And principally, the purpose of the audit report is both to inform conversations that we have those providers,
and to highlight their performance to yourselves as their landlords to over 14 ,000 households in Wandsworth.
We're proposing that when the report is published, they will have the right to reply and provide any clarification or commentary.
It's also worth noting that the landlords included in the reports have homes beyond the boundary of Wandsworth, so we're reviewing them as a landlord.
We can certainly ask them if they have disaggregated information available, but we'll very much wait to see what they come back with on that.
In terms of the main priorities for housing associations, as with all landlords,
they include things such as investing in existing stock,
stock condition and building safety, damper mould,
and then also focusing on resident and customer services.
And then also it's worth mentioning that
while some housing associations are active
in developing new homes, a large number have started
to scale back or pause development pipelines
so that they can concentrate on existing stock.
Indeed, one such landlord, PA Housing,
made that announcement only last week.
And then also in terms of the tenant satisfaction measures,
jumping back to those, they, I think the regulators
yet to get into a rhythm for how they're published
at specific times of the year, but they were released
in November last year, so we're expecting,
we're expecting a similar timeframe
this time around going forward.
That was a very brief overview of the paper
and I hope it suffices, but I'm happy to take any questions.
Thank you very much there.
I really welcome this report actually.
It's an example of what the new type of scrutiny can do that we can express our interest and
so this is yes, innovation and scrutiny.
And also for me in the ward I represent, Wandsworth town, there's quite a lot of housing association
and I do receive a large amount of casework there.
So, we actually had a meeting lined up with one of the housing associations, Southern, over the summer.
Particularly to look at communications and
build those channels about how we can stand up for all of our residents.
And unfortunately they're cancelled, so I feel this is going to open doors again.
Thank you.
Sorry, so some questions.
So, Councillor Faris, then Councillor Hamilton and corner, thank you.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for the update.
From reading the paper on your update, it sounds like the audit will only focus on the four largest providers.
Will there be other mechanisms in place to monitor the other smaller providers to ensure that there is oversight?
Because obviously they do account for 30%.
So, just wanted to ask.
So, ask.
Thank you.
We'll certainly take that away
and give it due consideration.
I think it is worth saying that the reason
we have the four large providers in scope
is because we have those existing arrangements
in place with them, but again, we will explore opportunities
to look at other main providers in the borough as well.
Yes, we can provide after the meeting.
And just on that point, there's a paragraph in the paper that.
Excuse me.
Thank you.
So if we can go to Councillor Hamilton, please.
And then Councillor corner.
With your permission, I'm happy to let go first.
So wish he is the boss around here.
Yeah, I think this is this if someone can sort of say, can I intervene now to build
and that point it is more understandable. Thank you. Thank you. Just literally on
that point there's a paragraph that says that a lot of housing associations have
specific emails that councillors can use to raise casework with the housing
associations. Can you please get all of those for all the housing associations in
the borough and share them with all councillors? What I think would
be useful is if we put a contact pack together with, like I say, details of the landlord,
the percentage of stock that they have and key contacts there, we'll endeavour to develop
something.
Everyone's laughing at me because there have been so many written questions about housing
associations and I've written so many times that there is a portal that you can go through
the members' inquiry system to get casework on housing associations.
For some reason that just has not landed, so I'm going to make sure that we write around,
and tell everyone that they can use the members' inquiry system.
And also, if they would like to collate the emails that Councillor
Givindja rightly muttered, might be less helpful than going through the member system.
Because I find, and I don't have to be serious about it, because it's a serious democratic deficit.
I have found using those very difficult and challenging.
They don't often get back to you.
You don't have the same kind of -
It takes so much longer.
Yeah, it takes so much longer.
So going through the members' inquiry system, which allows Al and
his team to directly contact Housing Association is a much more effective way.
Thank you.
I mean, to build on what Councillor Dickard has said, I've taken dealings with some housing
associations to Google the email address of their chief executive and send them a response,
and funnily enough, that tends to unlock it quite quickly.
But I think I welcome the direction of this.
I think it makes a lot of sense.
I think all of us as board councillors have seen some, I think, frankly disgraceful and
I've seen some particularly awful examples on the part of Wandle in the Ballum Ward.
I'm very happy to name them for that.
And I think the more scrutiny that we can put on them the better.
But I did have a question because this report looks at the future.
I just wanted to actually look at what we're doing already on this front.
I'm drawn to be part of the paper which mentions that the Social Housing Regulation Act 24 led to significant changes,
which means that the regulator of social housing being Wandsworth Council has special authority
for monitoring delivery in half the powers.
Sorry, can I just interrupt just for a point of correction there.
So the social regulator that's not Wandsworth Council.
Nonetheless, if I could just ask the further on the document that it makes reference to
there being a clear role for the council in terms of the oversights of their performance.
Could I ask if there have been any sort of statutory investigations, putting people properly
on the spot, really hauling these guys over the coals for any of those failings that they
have had, because I think we've all got examples of those that we really want to put forward.
Yeah, so we haven't got statutory powers in that sense, so they're regulated in the same
way that we're regulated.
And so the approach that we've taken is really, I would say, rapidly increasing the amount
of contact we have directly with Housing Association.
So we've informed full council before of the roundtables we have where we invite them all
in to talk specifically about maintenance, repairs, issues with contractors to try and
share best practise.
Because some of the challenges we face as a stockholder they face as well.
We escalate things.
Councillor Corner, I hope you talk about your experience with Peabody because we had some
real challenges off the bat there with the new mansion square.
And we as a council haven't shied away from using our influence, our power,
our relationship to try and address the problems that tenants raise.
Now, it's a bumpy road because again, we don't have that statutory power.
It relies on soft power, it relies on campaigning.
When I was a back bench councillor, I did a lot of this.
So you're going to local press, you're trying to advocate in the way that you would in any case.
I think we've got a balance between carrot and stick.
We want to have a good relationships with the housing
associations in order to make the changes necessary,
in order to get things done, in order to not have a situation
where they don't listen to us.
But at the same time, I think you can say we're pretty firm.
My relationship with people, we started on the St. John's Hill
site, where there was press coverage.
We went very hard.
The chief executive came in and met with us.
We've had similar fights around stock sell -off.
So some housing associations started
a plan of sell -off that had big impacts on tenants
that were going to lose their homes.
So we move, I would say what this is is at the moment,
the strategy has been a bit piecemeal,
it hasn't been embedded in, it hasn't been something
that is necessarily, it's been fairly member led
and fairly ad hoc based on what's been arriving.
I think this committee rightly pointed out
that we need to maybe institutionalise
some of the mechanisms a bit better,
and in doing so it will improve the model
that we have at the moment, which is regular engagement,
bringing them in, knowing the point of contacts,
and having officer relationships and member relationships.
That means that we can move when things come up.
And moving a little bit away from kind of off the cuff,
various things coming up, and having a bit more routine
and a bit more knowledge for you guys.
Because a lot of it, again, as a new scrutiny system,
a lot of this is happening with different ward counsellors.
and it's not really, it's not kind of corporately open
and transparent and we want to make it clear
to what the policy is.
Councillor Galindale.
Thank you.
I think it's a helpful report.
I just want to understand some of the mechanics in here.
Are we going to write a report which is based
on already known information and data
and bringing the data together?
Or are we going to be actually doing some spot cheques of our own?
So in a sense, are we going to in fact do some real investigation?
Or is it just doing a kind of desktop study of what they publish, what they're required
to publish, and what the regulator may find, and so on?
And so that kind of just changes the flavour of the report.
What this paper doesn't have any mention of is leaseholders.
the housing associations own leaseholders who are often dissatisfied for all manner of reasons
and so will they be covered in our future paper. I think it would be useful also to have some
insight into the nature of the stock holding, particularly supported housing type of stock,
because there are quite a lot of the housing associations have supported housing and actually
have a supported housing programme or whatever sort and I think that's kind of useful to
have.
Energy efficiency of housing association properties, I know there are far better performers than
perhaps even public sector and local authority stock but it's still, they're nowhere near
100%.
No, generally, this is a general statement I'm making rather than individual association
or individual council.
But I think it would be useful to know what the profile is
in the borough and what is their target
and then are they likely to achieve.
Because that often will help address the dump and mould side
of their responsibility.
And then when it comes to the annual report or report
or whatever, will they be expected to be here,
a bit like on the health committee, where somebody from,
they don't have to all come, maybe just one on behalf
of the other to be, to just be here to present
or challenge or answer or whatever.
And my final point is about complaint handling
from us as members.
I mean, I have at the moment got two running,
Notting Hill and Southern, in case of Notting Hill.
I think a council office has written about three times,
and there's no answer.
I mean, it's kind of, to them, we don't count,
we don't matter, but if this report is to be the leverage
where we matter, then I think we should almost have
a tally of who's not formed or something.
Thank you for those contributions.
Lots of ideas there.
Councillor Dickerton.
So I'll give some examples that hopefully feed
into some of the answer to the question.
So when we meet with individual housing associations,
one of the challenges we find is that their own structures
mean that often they're talking about a region
when it comes to Wandsworth.
So they might talk about the southwest region.
And that's not the granularity that we want.
So we try and get the data.
But these are very large organisations.
So one of the things we ask for is Wandsworth specific data
rather than we had a meeting with Southern
and we ended up with quite a lot of data
that was that regional data that wasn't really helpful for us.
So that's one of the challenges we
face when engaging with them as these behemoth organisations.
In Wandsworth, the stock is often
one of the unique challenges to Wandsworth
is they have old street property stock often
that they're trying to sell off because it's highly valuable
in order to build up their reserves to buy in or build
elsewhere.
So that's a kind of we have a political position around that
where we're trying to stop that and we engage on that process.
And that speaks a little bit to your point about leaseholders,
because that's not necessarily like a quality
of life of the social tenant.
It's to do with what they're doing with their voids.
So we do address them on things that
are beyond necessarily the scope of the tenant experience.
And we're in Wandsworth, service charge of shared owners
is a constant refrain.
Now, that isn't regulated by the same regulator
for social housing.
That's a whole separate.
And in my own ward, the Notting Hill Genesis residents
are currently going through full tribunal.
And they've gone through the first stage, and they've won.
And now they're having to fight in the second stage.
So we try and raise awareness on those issues.
And again, some of it is campaigning and soft power.
On the select committee model of bringing them
into this kind of committee, I'm not totally against it
as long as we recognise as a committee
that it can't be parochial on individual casework chase ups
and it's a strategic discussion
to talk about the overall stock.
And I think that is a,
I think something we can do,
and in my back pocket,
because I have to think about this in terms of soft power,
it's maybe a thing of last resort
where the Housing Association wants to tell off,
but it also might just be useful
and also get a sense of those that are willing to engage.
So I'm not against the idea, as long as we continue to think of this as a strategic body
rather than the cases that you're not managing to get through or the counsellors are managing
to get through.
We bring them in and then we randomly assign our own casework.
I've seen that happen before, basically, in that kind of select committee model, but I'm
not totally against it.
And I think Marcus and this paper is very much us with some ideas, but we can be flexible
and we can come up with new things because it's a moving target in many ways because
of how big they are, how many different issues are flagged by them.
If we really think a housing association is just failing, the regulator isn't helping,
you're at the stage whereby you're having to go to the CAW and put in an ombudsman complaint
and help the resident fill it in, that might be a moment when we think, okay, we've exhausted
all our options, let's bring them in.
Yes, go ahead.
There are a few points which Mr. Shukla will probably pick up on, but one just coming out
from what Councillor Dickerton said.
As I understand it, they don't have to cooperate with us to do this report.
We are doing it of our own bat.
So in a way, it is an exercise of soft power and a little bit of hard power, but largely
a soft power.
And perhaps it is in the spirit of that soft power to almost say that in due course, maybe
members like to have you at the committee, but perhaps also
present them with an advance copy and so on.
But I do hope that you explore different ways of getting them
to, and it doesn't have to be all four,
but I mean just one on behalf of the other.
And absolutely take your point that this is not
about either beating them up here
or raising complicated individual cases,
but it is about, say, what is it that they're doing in the borough and how it's working.
One final point, it's just about the social regulation.
Perhaps we should approach the regulator and say that he should use his responsibilities
and authority to ask the associations, housing associations, to create that that data set
is readable on a thorough basis because it can't be beyond the wit of man.
You know, we kept on keeping being told that that AI will make all of us redundant, but maybe until
that happens could they just use AI to give us the ones with the data? It can't be impossible.
Yeah, absolutely. We need ones with data. Are there any more questions on this? Yes,
Councillor Coroner.
Oh, sorry.
Do you mind, Councillor Coroner, if I went to Finares?
Oh, sorry.
Yes.
I was thinking that you might want me to respond to some of those points.
Just on the most recent one, in terms of the disaggregation of data, that was something
that was reflected back during the consultation on tenant satisfaction measures, but I'm sure
it can be raised again.
In terms of what we've proposed in this paper,
it is a review of existing and publicly available information, but that's not to say other things can't be considered.
And then also, to answer the question about leaseholders,
this is in line with what we do for Wandsworth.
So there is a tenant focus, and certainly the regulator's focus is predominantly on tenants as part of the standards.
but again we can explore what kind of information
we can get as a landlord.
We commission a perception survey each year.
There is a waiting involved,
but we ask questions of our tenants
and then also of our leaseholder.
So I suspect that the big four at least would do the same.
And then in terms of stock holding,
yes it is an intention to include a stock profile
in some context so that people know exactly
what the volume of stock is, the type of stock, and it's very much dependent on what we can get from them as well.
So I mean, like I said, building on what Councillor Dickens said about using soft power.
We should be able to pull quite a lot of this ourselves, but we may need to access gatekeepers or
specific people within organisations to just give us that bit more.
And then to answer your point on energy efficiency and related to that,
and obviously our law is being introduced.
I think that is something that we'd be looking to request.
We should be able to get an average energy efficiency
rating, EPC rating for each of the lungs.
I've seen that elsewhere.
Again, it is also based on the information
that's made available to us.
I think that was it.
Great, thank you. We'll look forward to when this comes.
Councillor Cornyn. Thank you, Chair. I also welcome this paper
in that it is an evolution in the Council's position from being one that largely wasn't
interested in HAs very recently to one which is now producing…
We've been campaigning for years now for better services, for better accountability
for HAs.
I mean some of the conditions that people are living in across the borough are outrageous.
Well, what I'm saying is we've been calling for this for a long time but it's actually
an issue that actually has very strong cross -party support across the council.
So we should be really ambitious about how we do this to drive up standards in housing Association properties
So to that extent the paper is is is a good one. I do think that it
There are opportunities for us to strengthen our approach a lot more quickly
So it says they'd be an annual report that comes out in autumn. Well, it's autumn now. So I presume that means next year
That's a long time. I
Don't reject or disagree with the idea of an annual report. I think that's a good idea
but we can do things between now and when it's published
in order to give this real teeth.
So for example, can we design an accountability framework
that we would take errant and kind of rogue housing
associations through?
So we wouldn't go straight to the bringing them
before the committee and kind of a star chamber
style approach but there are things we can do before that in order to put pressure on
housing associations.
I also think to the point that Councillor Govindia made, yes it is a lot about soft
power but there are hard powers that the council does have the ability to use to drive up standards
in housing association areas.
So for example, in New Mansions Square there are issues about environmental health and
hazards right?
The council has enforcement action powers that it can take on that matter.
So can we use them where housing associations are failing in that regard?
So it would be good to understand from the council well before the report is produced
what kind of powers can be used and what that accountability framework could look like.
Yes, the paper does talk a bit about what the council has been doing in terms of meeting
with housing associations but I think it's fair to say that most of those meetings have
residents haven't seen the benefit from, you know, from what I understand about cases that
I've...
We've stopped people from being generally convicted.
I think on a case -by -case basis that's not fair.
Sometimes they don't, you know, they're case meetings, right?
Of course.
I'll give you the benefit of that but...
A new, for example, we haven't seen the benefit of the case.
In New Manchin Square, for example, just to say one case, residents haven't seen tangible,
long sustained benefits from coming out of those meetings that have been had with the
housing associations, which is why we are particularly frustrated and angry about the
people whose actions on that estate.
And I do think Mr Sewell's team have been excellent actually in passing on councilor's
complaints.
I speak on behalf of colleagues who aren't in this committee, but ultimately they do
have to have teeth and the housing associations do need to be given every incentive to actually
respond to what the council does.
So I do think that designing that accountability framework with a series of steps well before
this report is produced next year would be, is absolutely necessary.
Also, it's really important that the Housing Association accountability approach works
with Councillors and residents.
I think, and I understand why this has happened, but a lot of the meetings are very much seen
as the housing director or resident services directorate now talking to meeting with housing
associations and residents not being consulted on the inputs for those meetings.
Now actually the meeting with Peabody on New Mansion Square was an example of where a different
approach was taken and I think residents welcome that and can now actually track actions that
will take, that will hopefully take place, I mean they haven't to date following lots
and lots of previous meetings, but hopefully now they will be able to track actions and
see improvements.
So why can't they, so we need to make sure that that happens more and that the meetings
with housing associations have evidence improvements that come out of them.
Yeah, so just my comment from, you know, I think it's really great that we've got
some good amount of consensus here about the, you know, the importance of this
area and actually that's my precise point as well is, you know, what
opportunity is there for council resident engagement in the meantime.
but OFT, Councillor Dicker,
actually, you finished on something that I agree with,
which is that I think formalising the model that we've used
and saying there's an escalating level of stick,
I guess is what we're talking about,
and embedding in that the resident voice,
because I think that the resident voice
gets things going much earlier,
much more so than the back room meeting
with the way you're just meeting
with the housing associations.
Once the resident voice is in there,
things, in my experience, have moved very fast.
So I'm sure Marcus is taking that down
and thinking about ways in which we can always ensure
that there is resident participation
in any discussion around their own experience.
Yeah, duly noted, and I've seen that incorporated
into frameworks in neighbouring boroughs
and have actually been involved in it as well, so.
That's wonderful to hear,
and we'll find a mechanism to, yeah,
to have some feedback on that.
Okay, so let's go on to the next item.
So this is actually now looking at the task

6 Housing OSC Work Programme (Paper No.25-336)

and finish group that we have set up
on social housing improvement,
which met in September quite recently.
And Councillor Stock is chairing that particular group,
so I'd like to ask her for some input.
Thank you, Chair. I know there's a bit of discussion about the desire for this committee
to have regular updates on the work of the task and finish group, and there is commitment
in the paper to provide an oral update. I think we can take away the possibility of
providing a short summary within writing, if that is the preference of the committee
rather than me providing an oral update, because I hope that I try and do the discussions of
Tasking Finish Group and its work to date justice in this oral report so we
can take away how best to report to this group go forward. So we met a couple of
weeks ago now, the first item that we discussed was the terms of reference.
There were a few changes that we've made, we've clarified, we sought to clarify the
scope in terms of not only the council currently being engaged with the
regulator for social housing but also the housing ombudsman and the building
safety regular and the ambition there is the work of the Task and Finish Group tries to
also shadow the work that's been ongoing by the Housing Directorate and the improvement
plan that is being looked at by senior leadership on a regular basis as well.
We also clarified our ambition in terms of our improvements, in terms of our grading,
to make sure that actually our ambition clearly here is to achieve the best possible rating,
We're not limiting ourselves to upgrade from a C3 to a C2.
And I think we all come together in our desire
for wanting the best for our local residents.
We then had a discussion as well,
and I think the terms of reference have been updated
to reflect both the group's desire for resident feedback
in terms of our decision making and progress,
but also how we as a group would feed back to residents
on our work through existing channels
that exist within the Council.
There was one point that hasn't been included
in the amended terms of reference, which
are included in the agenda pack for tonight.
That was around a discussion that we
had about what the end product of the Taschen Finish Group
looks like, and a discussion about a potential desire
to have a minority report if all members of the Taschen Finish
Group can't be agreed, and just to provide
the confirmation.
And it will be in the minutes of the meeting
that that is entirely possible.
but clearly we would hope to try and find some some consensus. We then had an
update on the Maesil Road fire that was in keeping with the update that we've
had tonight but as the state of place stood at that point and members of the
group were generally reassured by that progress and some discussion about
lessons and learn particularly in the early days and some of the use of hotels.
We then, I suppose the meeting of the meeting was an update on our work with the regulator,
the Ombudsman and the building safety regulator.
The offices are now having, and the cabinet member are now having monthly engagement meetings
with the regulator.
There's been a meeting with the Ombudsman in terms of their investigation.
Progress, positive progress is being made in relation to all matters that were raised
as a significant concern in relation to the regulator, that's electrical safety certificates.
I can put those on record if it helps members.
80 percent of domestic compliance is now complete, 88 of communal safe spaces have now been complete
in terms of our stock condition.
Over 1 ,110 surveys have been completed.
We are over target in relation to that, although there was some discussion that actually we
might expect progress to be made quite quickly at this point because it's easier to access
some blocks now.
It might become harder over time and there has been a reduction in the fire risk assessments.
We then understand that discussions with the regulator are now based on themed areas and
we discuss whether actually the approach of the task and finish group would also be to
follow those themes.
I sense that you don't want a lengthy update for me, so I'm not going to go into those
themes.
The other area that we discussed and officers were also keen to update us on is the reason
why we didn't have the housing improvement plan at the Tuscany Finish Group is that further
work is being done on that across the council and with some external housing consultants,
but there was a commitment that we will get that at the next meeting, and that will be
way that we can understand progress and measure progress going forward. So that was the kind
of action out of that part of the agenda. And then we moved on to a discussion around
repair service where we heard about the journey of residents through repairs and some discussion
around engagement that's been going on with residents in terms of concerns around repairs
and tenant satisfaction and an update that there's perhaps a closer look at some of the
maladministration cases that are coming through
with the department DMT,
the department management team meeting, I suppose,
and the cabinet members having more regular sight
of those now.
Hopefully that is accurate.
Oh, just the action on that point, I suppose,
was there was interest on stock condition
under that item as well,
and how our work on stock condition
is highlighting some repairs earlier
than residents might be reporting to us,
to the council ordinarily.
And so there was an action for us to hear more
about stock condition service in progress at the next meeting.
Thank you very much for that, yeah, whisking us through that.
Yeah, and that's a very good last point
that you made actually about that actually the programme is
getting added to like knock on benefits as we go through it.
But in my enthusiasm for talking about the task and finish group, I've realised that actually the papers on the whole work programme
So yeah, just to yes
Yeah, talk talk about that as well. So we do have reports
Yeah out outlined. We've got this, you know terms of references about scrutiny and
Yet that's you know, so for example the
You know an update on the fire might come in at some point and you know and so on but let's let's do some questions
so
Matthew corner and
Sorry, I'm counsellor corner and counsellor Covin gia first
My questions on the programme is a whole so if there are questions on the update that counsellor stock is made
Okay, great. Yeah, thank you for the work programme. I won't labour the point because
other colleagues have made this well, but we do need significantly more papers, I think,
added to the work programme. That isn't to say we need to have a situation like the
Finance Committee had, I think it was a year or so ago, where there were like 24 papers
for consideration and half of them didn't even get any discussion at all
that is absolutely pointless but there is a lot of there is a lot of stuff
going on in that in the resident services directorate which we need to
have overview and scrutiny of and and it just isn't present in in in the in the
work programme so we do need to I think it's probably not useful for this
meeting to kind of brainstorm ideas for for reports and add them in but I would
welcome, Chair, if we could meet to gather ideas
from our colleagues and then add them to the work programme.
In particular, it would be really excellent,
and there's been some excellent suggestions today
about reports that should be added to this already,
which I endorse, but I also feel we need papers
on the basis of the resident services merger,
how that's going to improve services for residents,
and what the plan is for getting a grip on costs in that
and how that new directorate will, in the council's view,
improve things for the residents we serve.
And I'd also like to see a paper on the work
of the deputy cabinet member in some respects,
so that's a new role created in the midst
of some controversy.
We have yet to receive any information
on what that role is meant to be doing.
It's actually, I think, unfair on Councillor Tiller, that he's the deputy cabinet member
for housing in such a role that is so ill -defined.
I think we do need to have a paper on that role and be able to hold the holder of that
role to account as part of the work programme.
Okay.
So with this new style of scrutiny, actually we've got a, you know, we are very much empowered
as a committee to look at the areas where we want more information.
So that's agreed.
But at the same time we have to think about the purpose of this.
And the reason for the change is actually to allow us as committee members to input
at the right time and to be able to have the possibility to affect decision making.
So we don't want reports necessarily for information.
So yes, we want to be informed.
but it's, sorry, to inform ourselves, shall I say,
rather than, yeah.
So there's got to be a purpose,
and we're thinking about sort of how are we going to be,
why are we receiving something,
and what are we going to do with it,
and how's it fit in this whole scrutiny work stream.
And I think the reason why is responding to recommendations,
particularly of the people who did the audit of the way we did scrutiny and they said it's
how very antiquated it was and very, you know, very unusual.
And so the reason, we want to have a depth of scrutiny, so in order to do that you don't
want to have exhaustive papers.
So I'm not saying this in order to, you know, say no, we're not going to have those papers.
It's certainly, it's for us to be requesting papers like you have been doing.
But then also for all the committee members to feed into the members of any particular task and finish groups.
If there's anything in particular that you think there, because I think it can be something that's quite flexible.
And also as we look into more things or
as we hear from residents or experts or stakeholders,
we will get to a new understanding,
and therefore that might lead us to want a little bit
more further down the line as well.
Come back very quickly on that.
So I've heard two things there from you
that are very promising.
So firstly, we can meet to discuss the work programme
and build it out based on the inputs
of everyone on the committee.
Secondly, that this needs to be about scrutiny of decisions.
So that does suggest to me that, well, at least in part, you did mention decisions.
So that does suggest to me that the substantive and important decisions the Cabinet are making
do need to, those papers do need to come to this committee either on an agenda or formally
as part of what we get sent outside of the meetings.
So I think what we're doing is we want to be able
to make sure that we are very secure in our opinions
and they're going to be informed by different aspects.
So not a committee member, sorry I say just,
it sounds derogatory, it's not at all,
But not only a paper to committee, but it can happen in lots of different forms.
So not everything could ever happen in this meeting, for example.
So it's got to have an alternative forms.
So one of those forms is the task and finish group.
But it could be all sorts of other things as well, as we've had outlined to us in our
training.
Because I was going to come in and say that cabinet decisions that you're, I mean, your
calling power is really for that.
So in order for this to be genuine pre -decision scrutiny, the calling power is used to scrutinise.
I wouldn't use this committee for that purpose.
And I also don't think, in some ways, some of the things you raised, I won't use the
example you used because I think it's unfair.
But let's say a particularly contentious 1000 Homes Programme scheme and you said we would
like a paper to discuss that that wouldn't really be in the remit.
And you probably wouldn't get consensus for that
to be brought to this committee.
But you probably could at some point
ask for a broad discussion if colleagues agreed
with our development programme and our strategy for supply
of council housing.
So I think that's the balance that you want to see.
And if there are cabinet decisions
that you're unhappy with, there is a different mechanism
for you to do that.
It wouldn't be through this.
Is that?
So I think the call in power has been stripped back, so actually as opposition on our own
we can't actually trigger that unlike in the old system.
Also in the old system, yes, well some of the agendas like that finance meeting were
utterly ridiculous and you actually needed, they should have multiple meetings for those.
One of the benefits of that approach was that members of a committee really got to know in great detail what was going on in the directorates that they were meant to be scrutinising.
So when I was on Children's Committee, I think I learned a huge amount from all that reading I did on Children's Committee and it was immensely satisfying.
We were able to kind of have really good discussions on it.
But I'm not getting from the agenda tonight and also the other OSCs that kind of commitment
to keeping members, informing members in a way that they can then do the effective overview
and scrutiny.
So I do think, I do stand by what I'm saying in terms of needing.
So yes, I answered where you're coming from.
I'm also on the Children's Committee and you know the level of understanding I've gained
there it might be from an online briefing or it might be on a visit to meet with professionals
somewhere in the borough.
So there are lots of different ways to inform ourselves.
So I would like to hope that we can do that in members of this committee for certain.
But I think the best way to discuss ideas for what comes to this committee, all different
forms of scrutiny is for us to meet outside of the meeting, get input, you know, form
your team, channel it through you, same on this side, and we will have an open discussion
about that.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
Please.
I'll be very brief because I think many of these points are really made, but I do think
it is worth saying, I'm sorry to bring up the, to reiterate the point that Councillor
Coroner Maye, for example, about a paper on the role of a new deputy cabinet member responsible
I don't want to make it about the individual or about any of the internal wranglings inside
the Labour group.
But I do think when we are actually looking at important new roles that are being introduced
that have direct relevance to this committee, I think it would be fair to have a discussion,
particularly in what we're calling an overview and scrutiny committee, about a role like
that.
And I think having sat through a number of the meetings, my first meeting of the housing
committee, but having seen a couple of iterations in this in the transport committee, these
meetings are, of course, informative.
There's no doubt about it.
It's a good, consensual discussion that happens.
But at the end of the day, we are here
from different political parties with different visions
for, I think, the way that we want to approach things.
And the ability to move proper motions, proper resolutions,
whether they're voted down or not,
I think has been a really important feature
of the past system.
And I hope that in the pursuit of a system that
fill of discussion, go into detail on issues that we do also remember that disagreement
is fine, disagreement is good, disagreement improves scrutiny and I think papers like
the one that was suggested by Councillor Corner on an issue like the deputy cabinet and for
housing are a fair game for discussion in this committee.
Yeah so I've heard that request and you know and just something you said sort of just wanted
I just wanted to remind committee that, you know, like in all of the training, we've been
reminded that full council, that's the place where we're doing, that's where we're really
pulling the punches and we're doing our politics.
We're all political animals, so obviously it does come in here and we have different
perspectives and that element of challenge, sorry, I find it a little bit difficult when
people are speaking over me, but you know, but that level, yeah, that level of challenge,
Yes, that is healthy, but that's no...
Councillor Givincic.
Thank you. I'd say this paper by Mr Chaudhuri
is almost a kind of a cut -out from some sort of textbook
on what is it that a scrutiny committee could do, should do, would do,
and he's cut and pasted it with every committee, I think,
and appropriated it.
I mean, frankly, I think Mr. Charuky do, the tone of this paper is entirely a textbook paper.
It's about what the scrutiny committee would do, should do.
That's what has come from his role as a monitoring officer and so on.
I mean, in a sense, it doesn't seem to be rooted in what the members' wishes are.
It sort of says things like, you know, sets a guide to help members continue to develop their work programme.
One of the things that doesn't help us to develop a work programme is to have a straight jacket in which we have to function without any flexibility of that straight jacket.
And in a way, I welcome your willingness to go a little bit beyond this and to see whether there are more issues that we can discuss.
The other function of a paper, apart from informing us and so on, is actually to inform
the public out there.
You might think they are not interested in what we write and speak and read, but there
are people who do and people who are, and particularly the issue of the task and finish,
and I did make that point earlier, I mean it affects them directly and they'll be interested.
When it comes to Maisel Road, it affects them directly, and they'd be interested.
To say that it is a paper for our information and we could do it the other way, you miss
out the key component that the people we are here to represent and people on behalf, on
whose behalf we actually exercise our function, also have a dog in this race.
And it isn't always a party political dog.
It is actually that they want to know what the big bad council is doing to their lives.
And people do see the council, mine, party, and your party too, as a big bad council.
They don't necessarily differentiate, and I think we shouldn't forget that they have an interest.
Just as a matter of observation, Council of Stocks report is perfectly good, perfectly comprehensive.
And you know, one would say, what was there to stop Mr. Kelly putting it into one side of a paper?
But yeah, and in a way, it's all, I mean, no, but I use that as an example to make a general point about
exposure of our interests and our concerns on behalf of our residents is something that they need to see and read.
Otherwise, we can all be managerial about running how they run the council.
Yeah, Councillor Gavincia, I am so pleased that you have raised this.
Obviously, everything we're doing here is for the sake and the benefits of the residents.
and that's why I've been, for example, asking about
in the Task and Finish group and in the paper in November,
can we make sure that we actually hear
from people with lived experience?
Yeah, so absolutely.
Councillor Dickerton.
So I was gonna come in,
because I think you're absolutely right.
Key decisions are going through cabinet,
and those are public, and that's a public meeting,
and the papers are online in exactly the same way
that they are for the Over -Inscrutiny Committee.
So if you want to learn about the Tooting Hotel,
a paper comes forward about the Tooting Hotel,
and there's a decision and the detail can be gone into,
and journalists look at those papers
and they write articles about them.
We do have a level of scrutiny there.
Now, that's not to say that,
look, I was in opposition on this committee,
and now we run things and we sit on the committee,
and I'm not being glib here when I say that
You know, it was in some way, it was a show where you,
you in opposition, just like when I was in opposition,
would come, we would make our comments,
and we knew, maybe we might, if we were luckily
on the education committee,
because there were two nonpolitical members,
occasionally pass a motion that goes to the executive
and nothing happens.
There was no actual ability to change policy,
but there was a lot of ability for kind of bura,
are motions, games, some of the performative stuff, right?
And you might say, and I agree with you on this, it's not always performative, because sometimes it's real politics.
We need a chance to be able to say, we think that's a terrible decision, we hate it, we're going to make a loud noise about it.
Now, some of that now is allocated to full council.
Look, let me finish.
Some of that is allocated to full council.
Some of it can certainly happen at this committee, but what this process allows is like,
I genuinely am excited about the idea that there are policies that are going to emerge from those task and finish groups that we didn't think of.
There is impact that you will have as opposition councillors, particularly on the housing association stuff.
Like Matthew, I don't think two years ago, maybe we would have invited you to that meeting with other residents.
Because the way the council operated was like, we're in charge, we don't invite opposition councillors to things.
You know, you've been invited to the residence conference, which for years wasn't seen as
the way it would work because there was a feeling that everything was about that bura
politics, right?
So it's my commitment to you that this committee is going to be generative.
You know, it's going to be generative.
It's just not for information.
These committees were amazing for getting a lot of information, but all you could do
with it is I'd say I'm against this publicly, and then it went off to cabinet and they rubber
stamped it.
So if there are moments where you want to do politics, I think there's space for the
politics to happen, but I feel like some of that has been given up in order for there
to be genuine pre -decision scrutiny and policy formation.
That, for me, is the compromise that this process has allowed, and if I was in opposition,
I would feel better for that because I wouldn't just be turning up for four years to shout
about something that I couldn't change.
I've got Mr. Chadwick who would like to come in now.
Do you mind?
Thank you, Chair.
Sorry, I really didn't know what you were referring to, Kansas.
I think you mixed me up with Aptus Chaudhary.
But it was his report that you were referring to.
But if I could just say something about my experience with scrutiny
and this form of scrutiny that we're now within.
I've had experience of it in many different shapes and different borders.
But my experience so far of the new approach for Wandsworth
has been reasonably good, I have to say.
I obviously have experience of scrutiny reports emerging in both transport and environment
committees.
I think where it's worked best, Councillors may disagree, but I think where it's worked
best it's been about policy development.
We've had good reports about policy development in terms of the library strategy, for example,
good key lines of inquiry around that, good key lines of inquiry and discussions about
the participation of women and girls in sports and how that's been influenced our policy.
And it genuinely has been influenced by the politics.
So whilst there's no actual decision taken in those meetings, those meetings have genuinely
informed the cabinet's view – cabinet members' view, and have then generally informed
the cabinet decision.
And of course, there will then be reviews by the scrutiny committee about how well that
fared – maybe a year, two years in, a chance for scrutiny to cheque whether their views
were heard and were applied and how successful they were.
So, you know, I do think it always takes time to get used to a new approach, but I think
I would just encourage the committee to look at what's been done in other committees so
far in terms of those reports that work well and those that haven't.
Back on that.
Mr. Chairman, you will be very surprised to hear that I confused you for him.
I think he would be very surprised.
I have never had difficulties distinguishing people of various backgrounds by just looking at them.
But no, and you make a good defence of a proposition that isn't a challenge.
But then of course you are the director who has to do this and I accept that entirely
because writing to the administration's defence is what you have to do.
But you did a far better defence
and that is exactly where I was then going to come to.
In a sense, it's about information, information is power.
You would know that expression far better than I would.
But in a sense, it is that where we are going.
But that's where we want to be.
In a sense, the information we are seeking really is not...
and I accept the point of Rara bits of politics,
but actually the rigour with which a paper is put together
so that it is both reflecting
of the administration's position,
but informing the public of what is being done in their name
is a good rigour, and that rigour actually helps us all
to both investigate, scrutinise,
and in due course inform public.
Yes, there were Rara, but if there wasn't,
why the hell would you go and stand for elections? I mean, you know, frankly, as
Councillor McLeod's already done by walking away from it.
I'm going to ask Councillor Graham for her question.
Thanks, Chairman. I'm actually looking at page 36, which is the terms of reference.
as I was at this meeting, we did discuss will there be public involvement as we
have discussed tonight very eloquently. I do have quite a lot of concerns as to
why the actual residence forum was cancelled because I really do feel that
they hold a very important role as regards to information and also with the panels. That
really wasn't agreed at the review and I'm hoping that that will actually take place
whichever way it is. Because you know, I mean, Mr. Glockler, okay, he is a leaseholder, but
he has a right in a way because he represents a whole load of residents associations in
the borough. So I'm very sad he's not here tonight.
On the BRF, I'll take response for you for that. Because there weren't any papers that
normally would address the BRF, the historic precedent would be to not have it go ahead.
I think the thought of the administration is that that gives tenants in these odd hours
our residents, it gives them their night back.
But actually, you're totally right.
They kind of are like, no, if there's no agenda,
we'd still like to meet with you,
we'd like to ask questions.
There are probably things we could have raised about,
just general things that we wanna talk to you about,
maybe a May Soul Fire update.
So hands up, I think you're right,
that if that happens again, we will go out to them
and say, look, there isn't a full agenda,
but we can meet anyway.
We're actually gonna bring forward a BRF meeting
that is before and not necessarily
for the council committee, so that's going ahead.
We have sent out the invites for that.
So I kind of stopped holder one
so that people can raise issues
and we can specifically talk about certain HRA matters.
So a good question and from now on,
if we have those kind of gaps,
we'll consult with them rather than get rid of those meetings.
Yes, thank you. Thank you, Councillor Graham for raising that and yeah, I hope you satisfied
with the response. Okay, so basically I'd like to ask the committee to note the work
programme, but I'd like you to note the work programme given the contributions that have
also being made today which are noted.
Are we agreed?
Chair, sorry.
I hope that we will have at the next meeting,
in a sense, the impact of the merger.
I mean, we have a view about it,
which perhaps will go somewhere else,
but I think how this will work,
and how this impact on the affairs of this committee,
but more importantly, on the tenants and leaseholders
for when we are responsible. So in a sense I know I know there are documents
that are going around in within the staff teams about you know this is
what's happening this is what's happening to you and so on but but I
think we need to know more than that.
Just to say on the creation of the residence services director a member of
finance overview committee has requested that the item be discussed at
that committee, and that falls under a paper that's going to that committee in terms of
the medium -term financial strategy and the transformation programme.
So there is a commitment for that to be discussed.
I appreciate the comment you've made this evening about the relevance to this committee,
but just to give an assurance in terms of transparency that there is a commitment that
that will be discussed at that finance committee next week.
Can we just be sent that paper when that is dropped?
I mean, when I say this, half the thing is that, yes, they are there publicly, but, you
I'm not sitting there looking at the council website saying what's published.
So I do like to be slightly spoon -flit.
I mean, I know Councillor Critchardt is never on certain days on duty, so I'm sure we all
have that view.
I think that's perfectly reasonable that we can spoon -feed you there.
Thank you very much for coming to this meeting and the meeting now enters.