Agenda item

The Committee considered the report presented by the Portfolio Holder for Housing, Councillor Lee Brazier.

As detailed in the report, the Portfolio Holder had been invited to attend Committee to respond verbally to three specific queries as at paragraph 2.1.

The Portfolio Holder advised the committee that he would be taking the questions in the order of 2, 3 and then 1.

Question 2

Members are aware that the Regulator of Social Housing is due to inspect the Council’s housing service shortly. Can the Portfolio Holder outline how the Council is preparing for this inspection, what the inspection will focus on, and what it means for residents, members, and staff at this stage?

The response from the Portfolio Holder:

We are and have been for some time preparing for the Regulator of Social Housing inspection, with work underway across the Council to provide the inspection with key documents.

This inspection is about assurance to evidence that we are delivering against the regulatory standards that apply to us – these are the consumer standards around

·         Quality and Safety

·         Transparency, Influence and Accountability

·         Tenancy

that is, how we know services are safe, compliant and tenant focused, this is not about operational day to day activity.

We expect the regulator to focus on governance, transparency and evidence of oversight, influence and scrutiny by tenants and members.

We have areas of strength – the TPAS reengineering project to build on how tenants engage and influence service delivery and reducing the barriers to participation through recognising the time, skills and effort tenants give us in huge amounts – and the need to have a mix of opportunities to suit their circumstance and ability to be involved. Increasing the tenant board members from 3 –5 is really exciting and I look forward to working with them.

We have been shortlisted at the Pineapple awards for our engagement with tenants

on Yorke Drive, which is a complex regeneration project – we are in regular contact with tenants and working with the developer through the planning requirements, and once complete, we can give a firm start on site date. The Pineapple shortlisting recognises our ongoing commitment to keep residents informed and involved in this project.

Our Tenant Satisfaction Measures are strong in the main, and we perform well against our peers, but also know that Repairs, Complaints and ASB are key services we need to get right every time. This is reflected in Housing Service business plans that have been presented to me and involved tenants. We have grouped these activities by theme and launched our Foundation Five campaign to bring this alive for staff and members.

We are also self-aware and honest about where improvement is needed – our move to a new Housing Management System aims to improve how we deliver services, tailor services and show how we are performing – this has been really challenging over the past year and teams have been working with NEC, the provider, to ensure the systems does what we need it to.

The Repairs and Empty Homes service are improving and we are starting to see the improvements of the changes the team have put in place- I'll talk more about that later.

What does this mean for residents? This is an opportunity for external scrutiny of our services, to build on our existing performance and come out with an improvement plan that will help us to deliver even better services.

For us as a Council, it is an opportunity to show our understanding of services, and our progress with putting tenants at the heart of what we do, giving clear leadership and developing a customer centred culture.

Question 3

As the Council continues to plan for Local Government Reorganisation, can the Portfolio Holder explain how housing services will be protected during the transition, and how the Council will ensure that tenants remain central to decision making throughout this process?

The response from the Portfolio Holder:

We are already working with LGR partners through our Housing Directors Strategic Group and equivalents at Bassetlaw, Mansfield and Ashfield to start looking at how we can work together to protect housing services through Local Government Reorganisation.

We are working to ensure that at day 1, we are safe and legal, and are using the time up to vesting day to align our services as much as we can ahead of this. We must ensure services remain available to tenants across all districts, particularly ensuring the safety of our tenants.

We have already identified areas we can be more effective – we are exploring sharing

resources to complete our Supported Housing Strategy, align our approach in our preparations for the Competency and Conduct standard and have started to look at our data and systems.

For tenants, the Group is looking at creating a tenant engagement mechanism that crosses all districts – but for this to be effective we need confirmation from Government on who our new partners will be and we shall go from there.

LGR touches every team of the Council and we have officers on all workstreams and as you know and are adjusting our resources to ensure we can keep our day-to-day services running and be ready for LGR. We are engaged with other Councils who have been through LGR to learn from them.

We are still working on improving services – as you know we have a PPIC working group in place now to look at estate walkabouts, led by Cllr Rainbow, and look forward to hearing the outcomes and recommendations from this group.

Question 1

In light of the performance on time taken for housing repairs and turnaround of empty properties remaining well below target despite the restructuring of the Housing Team, what further measures do you intend to take to improve performance and meet these targets? When can we expect the targets to be met once again and please confirm that you will not be reducing the targets to make them easier to meet?

The response from the Portfolio Holder:

Members are right to note that relet times are below target - this is clearly visible in performance data – this frustrates me, officers and involved tenants as much as yourselves! I can confirm that the teams are working hard to turn this around – but it's not achievable overnight.

To be clear, we have invested in an additional Business Manager and a new Damp & Mould team following the split of one business unit into two, which are now:

Repairs and Empty Homes and Building Safety and Asset Investment -

The new Business Managers started in December 2025, and have made strong inroads into their services, with fresh eyes and a real passion for delivering great services.

Already, they have made a real positive impact at Tenant Engagement Board with our involved tenants and myself and other board members, giving us collectively, confidence that with time and space to work their magic, we will return to the strong performance within the next financial year– and a high quality service that is modern and reflects tenants priorities. 9/10 tenants asked are satisfied with their home at letting – we are getting it right more, listening and responding where we don’t.

There is pain before the gain and as we repair our empty homes and relet them, we know performance will appear worse – this is short term and am confident we will be reporting far more favourable performance by the summer. As said at full Council, to take on your challenge to improve our services across the board.

How do we improve our services? We have a Housing Services Strategic improvement plan – owned by the Director who briefs me on progress against the completion of actions in areas for improvement. These reflect our landlord strategy objectives and keep us focused on our priorities.

We do have to find a balance of setting stretching but achievable targets which is what we have done, to keep teams motivated and moving in the right direction. When we can make our key-to-key target shorter, you’ll be the first to know and it will go through this committee for transparency. That’s how democracy works.

Councillor Holloway asked for an update on the Stock Condition Surveys:

The Portfolio Holder advised that working collaboratively to understand the property conditions of other Councils and that our properties conditions are at the higher end.

Energy Performance Certificates were also discussed and the Portfolio Holder advised that EPCs and stock condition surveys to be carried out at the same time whilst the properties were empty.

Other questions asked at the meeting or comments that suggest clarification is needed:

What is the process for target setting against KPIs and when will Committee members be able to review any changes?

Response. The Senior Transformation and Service Improvement Officer will provide a written response before the next committee meeting.

Question. Arrears haves gone up across the last 4 quarters, what process do we have in place to support our tenants and more information requested regarding the processes that are in place to bring down the level of arrears?

Response. Arrears are impacted by reference of universal credit on the arrears position, and this a full response was provided by the Business Manager in the Quarter 2 performance report. Officers will provide a written response providing more detail.