Agenda, decisions and minutes

1.1. RESOLVED: that Cllr Stephen Penfold be elected as Chair of the Committee and Cllr Will Cooper be elected as Vice-Chair.

1.1. RESOLVED: that Cllr Stephen Penfold be elected as Chair of the Committee and Cllr Will Cooper be elected as Vice-Chair.

2.1. RESOLVED: that the minutes of the last meeting be agreed as a true record.

2.1. RESOLVED: that the minutes of the last meeting be agreed as a true record.

3.1. Councillor Cooper declared an interest as a service manager for Community Advice Works- which provides advice and advocacy for people regarding housing matters in Lewisham.

3.2. Councillor Penfold declared an interest as an employee of the Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network- which provides advice to refugees and migrants in Lewisham.

3.1. Councillor Cooper declared an interest as a service manager for Community Advice Works- which provides advice and advocacy for people regarding housing matters in Lewisham.

3.2. Councillor Penfold declared an interest as an employee of the Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network- which provides advice to refugees and migrants in Lewisham.

RESOLVED: That

·         the report be noted;

·         the Committee receive another update on the Housing Assistance Policy towards the end of this municipal year;

·         the Committee be provided with further information on how residents were referred to the Occupational Therapy Team and the number of unsuccessful or withdrawn applications that were made for grants/loans;

·         the Equalities Analysis Assessment for the Policy be revisited to update the carers and gender impact sections if possible.

Fenella Beckman (Director of Housing Strategy) and Rhona Brown (Head of Private Sector Licensing and Home Improvements) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

4.1. The Council was refreshing its Private Sector Housing Policy and this refresh was being carried out for three main reasons:

·         to make the policy shorter, clearer and user-friendly;

·         to increase the grant, loan and fee amounts to take into account the present-day cost of materials and works; and

·         to introduce two new discretionary grants- Energy Efficiency Grant and Hospital Discharge and Prevention Grant.

4.2. The purpose of the new Hospital Discharge and Prevention Grant was to support low level interventions that would help hospital discharges such as mowing overgrown gardens, clearing a room to make it safe or moving necessary furniture. This grant was for up to £3000.

4.3. The purpose of the new Energy Efficiency Grant was to support low level energy efficiency improvements such as installing energy efficient windows or draught proofing. This grant was for up to £1000.

4.4. The Private Sector Licensing and Home Improvements team was working with the Climate Resilience team to explore options for improved joint-working around larger scale energy efficiency improvements to vulnerable households around the borough.

The Committee members were invited to ask questions. The following key points were noted:

4.5. Officers were looking to improve and increase the number of grants. They reported that the Council doesn’t receive many applications from private rented sector tenants as there is not enough awareness about these grants.

4.6. If there was a situation in the private rented sector where the tenant wanted the grant improvements, but the landlord was not in agreement, then the Council would mediate with the landlord.

4.7. Officers were making efforts for the Private Sector Housing team to work more closely with the Grants and Loans team to encourage the take-up of these loans/ grants by landlords in the private rented sector.

4.8. The grants and loans available to tenants and landlords were not being publicised very well. To combat this, the Head of Private Sector Licensing and Home Improvements was undertaking an end-to-end process review of the service. This review also focused on engaging more with the front-end services such as Adult Social Care, who had face-to-face contact with residents who could be eligible for grants and loans.

4.9. For accessing the mandatory Disabled Facilities Grant, the resident needed to be referred to the Council’s Occupational Therapy team within the Adult Social Care division. Therefore, it was difficult to openly publicise this grant as residents couldn’t make an application by themselves but rather needed to be referred to the Council. However, Officers agreed that more awareness about this grant would benefit residents in being more proactive about these referrals. The Committee asked for more information on the process of how residents were referred to the Occupational Therapy Team.

4.10. A member of the Committee suggested that the police was also an important stakeholder to be engaged with and kept informed of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

A presentation will be delivered at the meeting

RESOLVED:

·         That the report be noted.

Nazeya Hussain (Interim Executive Director for Place), Lynne Sacale (Housing Transformation Programme Lead) and David Austin (Director of Finance) presented this item to the Committee. The following key points were noted:

5.1. The presentation provided the Committee with an update on the transition of Lewisham Homes into the Council as well as an update on the recommendations that officers were taking to the Mayor and Cabinet on the 21^st of June.

5.2. 12 staff members from Lewisham Homes’ Development team transitioned to the Council in February 2023. A further 44 staff members from IT, Finance, Technology, Data and Digital, TMOs and Temporary Accommodation teams, transitioned to the Council in May 2023. 600 more staff members were due to transition in October 2023.

5.3. The Council took a phased approach to this transition of services from Lewisham Homes. One of the reasons for this was that the transition required the Council to rebuild IT platforms, re-network the building and adapt to different accounting systems.

5.4. Through different workstreams, the Council was trying to determine how different services would be governed once they were transferred to the Council and how residents would be enabled to have a meaningful voice in the management of their services.

5.5. After transferring some services into the Council in advance of the October 2023 transfer date, lessons had been learnt and additional one-off costs had been revealed mainly relating to IT and redundancies. In a best-case scenario, these additional cost were said to be £3.3 million. In a worst-case scenario these costs were estimated to be £3.9 million.

5.6. Funding for these one-off transition costs had been identified both through the General Fund and the HRA (Housing Revenue Account). However, identified funding wasn’t enough to cover the entirety of the costs leaving a gap of £1.4 million in the best-case scenario and a gap of £2.6 million in the worst-case scenario.

The Committee members were invited to ask questions. The following key points were noted:

5.7. An update on this transition was provided to residents between January 2023 and March 2023 through a newsletter. Since then, Council officers had been working with Lewisham Homes officers to understand how residents could be engaged with. In early Summer, a joint-newsletter from the Council and Lewisham Homes would be distributed to the residents. There was a dedicated communications officer for the transition and a resident engagement plan was just being finalised now.

5.8. The resident newsletter that went out earlier this year was circulated both digitally and through letter drop. The upcoming newsletter that was due to be circulated in Summer would follow the same approach.

5.9. It was discussed that Councillors could play an instrumental role in identifying gaps in resident awareness. Making sure that Councillors had up-to-date information about the transition was vital as they could pass that on to residents when contacted by them.

5.10. The Committee asked for the one-off transition costs provided in the presentation to be broken down further and was informed that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

RESOLVED: That

·         the report be noted;

·         the Committee receive another update on Emergency Housing towards the end of this municipal year.

Fenella Beckman (Director of Housing Strategy), Ellie Eghtedar (Head of Housing Needs and Refugee Services) and Koye Edrah (Homelessness Prevention and Assessments Service Manager) presented this item to the Committee. The following key points were noted:

6.1. In 2022-23, the Council received 3,554 homeless applications in total. Eviction from Assured Shorthold Tenancy was the 2^nd leading cause of homelessness in Lewisham.

6.2. 710 applicants approached the Council due to the end of their Assured Shorthold Tenancy in 2022-23 compared to 315 in 2020-21. These figures demonstrated the effect of the government ban on evictions during pandemic and the effect of the subsequent lifting of that ban.

6.3. Out of the 710 applicants that approached the Council, 155 were owed relied duty. Out of those 155, 138 applicants were owed main housing duty.

6.4. It was noted that the presentation mentioned that the court judge could make a suspended possession order but that was not relevant to the Section 21 hearings.

6.5. Since April 2020, 237 households who were homeless due to the end of an Assured Shorthold Tenancy had been moved to a temporary accommodation. On average, households were moved to temporary accommodation 107 days after approaching the Council for support.

6.6. Officers conducted a spot check for 30 households with longer waiting times to be placed in temporary accommodation and found evidence that some households were being placed into temporary accommodation on the date of the bailiffs warrant. 17 out of these 30 households were placed into temporary accommodation on the date of their eviction.

6.7. Finding temporary accommodation across London had become increasingly challenging and was having a detrimental impact on the Council’s ability to rehouse households.

6.8. The Council had to regularly report on the number of families it had in shared accommodation for longer than six weeks and these numbers had been increasing. Previously, Housing Select Committee and Children & Young People Select Committee had undertaken joint-scrutiny work on this matter as this was an area of joint concern.

6.9. 188 applicants who were threatened with eviction from an Assured Shorthold Tenancy were prevented from becoming homeless through either securing existing or alternative accommodation.

6.10. It was noted that if the Renters Reform Bill passed through parliament, Section 21 would be abolished as there would be no such thing as an Assured Shorthold Tenancy.

6.11. If a homeless application was made by an applicant who was a victim of domestic abuse, the Council would usually not offer accommodation in Lewisham if the area was assessed as unsafe. Officers would advise the applicant regarding a homeless application to a safe borough of client’s choice, along with trying to assist the applicant through various schemes such as Homefinders UK, Safer London scheme or Find Your Home support scheme.

6.12. The Domestic Abuse Act did not guarantee that a social housing tenant fleeing abuse would be provided another social housing tenancy. Therefore, they could be offered properties in the private rented sector. However, if a new social housing tenancy  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

RESOLVED:

·         That the Committee’s work programme for 2023-24 be agreed.

7.1. The Chair asked the members of the Committee to stay back for an informal discussion after the end of the formal meeting.

RESOLVED:

·         That the Committee’s work programme for 2023-24 be agreed.