Board of Management Meeting - Homes for Haringey · 2019-09-18 · The RSP has benefited from specialist training by the Scrutiny Champion covering GDPR and Risk Management. This

Board of Management Meeting

Tuesday 24 September 2019

Conference Room 1, 1st Floor 48 Station Road, Wood Green, N22 7TY

Refreshments 5.45pm Safeguarding Pre-Board Briefing 6.00pm AGM 6.25pm Board Meeting 6.30pm

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Pre Board Briefing: Safeguarding

Item Subject Report For Status Page Time 1 Welcome and Apologies - 6.30 2 Declarations of Interest 6.35 3 RSP Annual Impact Assessment Discussion Public 6.36 4 Meeting Minutes – 30 July 2019 Decision Public 6.50 5 Actions Log Information Public 6.51 6 Chair’s Report (Oral Item) Discussion Public 6.52 7 Managing Director’s Report Discussion Public 7.00 8 Performance Report Discussion Public 7.10 9 Finance Report Decision Public 7.30 10 Dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour Discussion Confidential 7.40 11 Broadwater Farm Report Information Public 7.50 12 VfM Self-Assessment Discussion Public 8.00 13 Equality & Diversity Report Discussion Public 8.10 14 Board Away Day Planning (Oral Item) Discussion Public 8.15 15 Procurement Waiver Approval Decision Confidential 8.25 16 Sealings Register Information Public 8.27 17 Any Other Business 8.30

Board of Management Meeting 24 September 2019

Agenda

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Report for Board of Management

Title Resident Scrutiny Panel Annual Report 2019

Agenda item 3

Report for Discussion

Classification Public

Report author Anne Gibson, Chair Resident Scrutiny Panel

Contact email [email protected]

Contact telephone

020 8489 3728

1. Introduction1.1 The purpose of this report is for the Board to receive and consider an

annual impact assessment report produced by the Resident Scrutiny Panel (RSP) on its activities during 2018/19.

2. Background2.1 The RSP is an independent voluntary group of residents comprising

tenants and leaseholders recruited, trained and supported by a mentor to scrutinise services provided by Homes for Haringey (HfH). They have representation on HfH’s Audit and Risk Committee and form part of the Board’s overall assurance framework.

2.2 The Regulator’s Tenant Involvement and Empowerment Standard states that “Registered providers shall ensure that tenants are given a wide range of opportunities to influence and be involved in the scrutiny of their landlord’s performance and the making of recommendations to their landlord about how performance might be improved”. The role of the RSP helps to ensure compliance with this regulatory standard.

3. Resident Scrutiny Panel3.1 Feedback from various scrutiny activities of the RSP are a useful

source of intelligence for management and help target where improvement is needed.

3.2 Whilst the RSP value their independence and the freedom to decide which services they would like to scrutinise, based on the ‘residents’

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mailto:[email protected]

interest’, they are open to suggestions if the Board has any areas of concern it feels would benefit from resident scrutiny.

4. Recommendation4.1 The Board is recommended to review and comment on the RSP’s

annual report for 2018/19.

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Resident Scrutiny Panel Annual Impact Assessment Report 2018/19

1. Introduction by the Chair- Anne Gibson

It was a challenging year for the panel. We lost four panel members – one through

ill health, our Vice Chair because she took a temporary job with LB Haringey and

our Chair, who resigned in January 2019. I was elected as Chair in February

2019, as was our Vice Chair, Viv Sharma. So, there has been a bit of disruption to

the workflow, especially as we are down to just six members.

An initial recruitment exercise to attract new members (for the RSP, the Complaints

Panel and the Board of HfH) was unsuccessful. A subsequent campaign has been

more successful and will hopefully result in new recruits once the selection process

is complete.

On a more uplifting note, we have received good responses from HfH, to our

reviews, with most recommendations being endorsed; so, the RSP has a positive

impact on helping to shape and improve services.

During the year, RSP members have also had the opportunity to be involved with

other HfH activities, e.g. participating in interviews for the appointment of senior

members of staff and participating in a procurement exercise. These activities

benefit HfH as the participants bring with them, not only their knowledge as

residents, but also some existing knowledge of how HfH works. They also benefit

RSP members as they become better acquainted with senior staff and enhance their

understanding of HfH, and this will feed back into a better ability to undertake

scrutiny reviews. One member also attended an external TPAS consultation meeting

on measuring performance as a resident representative of HfH.

I have served as the co-opted member of the Audit and Risk Committee of the

Board of HfH since mid-2017. This involvement provides a two-way channel for

communication as part of HfH's assurance policies and it has been of enormous

importance for informing initiatives.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our past Chair, Yvonne Denny, for all

the work that she did for so many years. I would also like to thank Puneet Rajput,

our Scrutiny Champion, Oonah Lacey, our mentor, and Susan Wright for unfailing

administrative assistance. Not least, a big thanks to all our remaining RSP members

for their work in the last year.

2. Key highlights

The RSP has continued to deliver considerable work despite depleted resources

and accommodating additional activities to support the needs of the business.

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A detailed review of the Responsive Repairs Service delivered a total of 33

recommendations. This review overall demonstrated that the repairs service

has undergone significant change including the introduction of the Service

Connect IT system. A detailed service improvement plan has been

developed to support the commitment by the service to deliver a quality

service for their customers. Two RSP Scrutiny Monitors are working with the

service to monitor progress against the service improvement plan on a

quarterly basis.

We commenced in October 2018 a review of Communication and

Engagement with all reality checking completed but final sign off

outstanding due to work priorities changing and reduced meetings taking

place because of member availability.

The standard of 12 monthly RSP meetings has had to be expanded to 18 to

accommodate the workload. It is important to provide appropriate time to

review reports and feedback in a timely manner ensuring that all panel

members have the opportunity to feedback and contribute effectively to the

work of the panel.

A total of 20 working group meetings have been held in 2018/19. This is

where the detailed work and specific tasks are completed so that reports

and briefing papers can be developed. Having appropriate time for

discussion and input allows the RSP meetings to focus on decision-making.

The working Group numbers attending vary from 2 to 4 members at any

one time, allowing an opportunity for RSP members to gain experience and

skills essential to their role and responsibilities.

To ensure that the work of the RSP considers the views and aspirations of

as many customers as possible, the use of Focus Groups is essential. A total

of 8 Focus Groups have been held attended by a total of 150 tenants and

leaseholders. The Focus Groups provide an opportunity to learn about

personal experience and identification of trends related to good service

delivery and where things have not worked perfectly. The venues and times

of Focus Groups are designed to encourage attendance and the offer of an

opportunity to win a £10 shopping voucher by attending and completing a

questionnaire has certainly proved positive. Focus Groups have focused on

the responsive repairs service and communication and engagement.

For each service review confidential interviews are held with customers,

staff, and Councillors. In 2018/19 a total of 62 interviews were completed

and the feedback used to inform our reports. We ensure that we reach as

many staff at all levels so that we can triangulate our findings.

Our operating model involves 2 RSP members being allocated to each

completed review as a Scrutiny Monitor. There have been 7 scrutiny monitor

meetings to review the service improvement plans and report back to the

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RSP on progress and outstanding issues. The Scrutiny monitor meetings

included, responsive repairs, ASB, Complaints, Sheltered and Supported

Housing and Estate Services. The outcomes from these meetings indicate

that where services are jointly provided by HfH and the Council that

progress with service improvements is significantly slower or non-existent

which is of concern. It is unclear where the barriers are, but these need to

be addressed.

Presenting an annual impact assessment report to the HfH Board is a key

opportunity to inform the Board on work being undertaken but also to

receive feedback that will inform future reviews. In 2018 the Board

recommended presenting the concept of resident scrutiny to new

Councillors and for them to meet the RSP. The RSP was pleased to be

invited and introduce the work of the RSP to an induction meeting of new

councillors. This was very helpful to be able to promote the independence

of the RSP but highlight our important role as part of the governance and

assurance process of HfH.

The Managing Director attended a meeting with the RSP, which was very

helpful and provided an excellent opportunity to ask questions and share

the work of the panel. The RSP would like to see that an annual meeting

takes place so that we can build on our partnership to deliver services in a

way that meets the business and customer needs.

The Chair of the RSP has continued to undertake the role of co-opted

member of the Audit and Risk Committee.

The Scrutiny Champion provides corporate updates on a quarterly basis to

the RSP. These updates are essential and welcomed to ensure that we are

aware of changes, priorities and can play a part where required to provide

feedback. The opportunity to provide a stakeholder report on the

performance of HfH was welcomed.

The RSP values the support and time given by staff to attend, by invitation,

RSP meetings. These meetings ensure that the RSP is kept updated and

informed. A total of 12 officers have attended RSP meetings.

Mystery shopping is a keyway to test the service and a total of 6 exercises

were carried out. These covered, supported and sheltered housing,

responsive repairs, service centres, accessing services, complaints and the

call centre. Some have been reported directly to Heads of Service or

included in review findings. Where significant issues are identified these are

immediately reported so that solutions can be implemented.

Completion of surveys and questionnaires are an effective way to gather

customer and staff feedback. A total of 150 completed

surveys/questionnaires have helped positively to support our reality

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checking exercises. Details have been collated and sent to Heads of Service

and included in RSP reports.

The RSP has benefited from specialist training by the Scrutiny Champion

covering GDPR and Risk Management. This training was gratefully received

and has helped us update our procedures and improve our governance

documents.

A full governance review of the RSP has commenced following the RSP

Team Building summer event and training. Key changes made include:

- Membership of the RSP is 10 members (6 tenants and 4 leaseholders)

- Officers of the RSP changed to having a Chair and Vice Chair instead

of 2 Vice Chairs

- RSP members must attend 75% of monthly RSP meetings

- 360-degree personal appraisals

- Leave of absence policy offering up to 6 months for specific events

- Updated RSP information regarding membership and work of the RSP

on the HfH website

- Co-opted member appointed by the Audit and Risk Committee to be

able to serve for 4 years

- Clarification on the RSP access to the Executive Team and the Board.

- Increasing the transparency and work of the RSP through the HfH

website and newsletters.

The governance review has covered, RSP Terms of Reference, Code of

Conduct, working together protocol, membership agreement (probationary

and full), and operating procedures. At the time of writing a new appeal

process for RSP members is awaiting confirmation to complete the

governance review, and approval by the Scrutiny Champion.

The RSP welcomes the opportunity offered to them to have input into a

number of work areas outside the direct remit of the RSP. These have

included:

- Contract tendering process for Noel Park

- Recruitment of HfH staff – Resident Engagement Manager and Head of

Income

- Feedback into the Resident Engagement Strategy

- Feedback into service standards review

- Provided interim support for the Complaints Appeal Panel

- Process for appointing the independent Chair of the Leaseholder

Improvement Forum

- Meeting with the Labour Group of Councillors to share insight on HfH

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- Attendance at the Supported Housing Forum

- Helping with the selection of employees for the staff Recognition and

Rewards presented at the staff conference

- Meeting with a potential supplier to provide a booklet to go out with

leaseholder statements

- Opportunity to feedback into the post Grenfell safety report and action

plan

The RSP collectively has given in excess of 1,754 hours of volunteer time to

carry out all the activities in 2018/19

The RSP was pleased to be nominated at the Rewarding Residents Volunteer

Awards.

3. Challenges

There have been a number of challenges that the RSP has faced and overcome,

including:

Introduction of the 360-degree member appraisal process, which

introduced new challenges for panel members not only to appraise their

own performance but also give feedback on colleagues. Results are

detailed below but it is evident that greater preparation is required to give

confidence that feedback is positive and helps all develop and perform

better.

Resignation of Chair – 2 officer election events were disruptive and resulted

in additional time taken up and lost momentum. The RSP has regrouped

and are all delivering positive contributions to our work and adapting to a

new style of working which can only be positive.

Reduced number of members for a number of reasons we have a depleted

number of members available in the working day to carry out reality

checking work to support reviews. We will be focusing on recruiting more

members with daytime availability to allow productivity to be increased and

target timescales met.

Unsuccessful recruitment of members – it was expected that the recruitment

process was to be completed in November 2018 but was delayed into

2019 and combined with the recruitment to fill casual vacancies on the HfH

Board. Unfortunately, this failed to receive the response expected.

Delay of 4 months to receive documentation for reviews – this has been

very disruptive and once a review scope is agreed that officers need to be

more responsive with providing documents and not afraid to state if they do

not exist because this is part of the review assessment.

Failed to keep working plan – reduced member resources and ill health of

members and holding two election events.

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4. Opportunities

There are many opportunities that need to be grasped to make scrutiny even better

and speed up reviews. These include:

o Using friends of scrutiny to do mystery shopping to support reviews

o Recruitment to get new members and the focus on having more

members that can contribute to work during the daytime.

o To narrow the scope of service reviews and look at dividing reviews

into 2 stages

o RSP service standards to be used effectively to drive the work of the

RSP.

5. Appraisal feedback

All members of the RSP completed a 360-degree personal performance appraisal

and provided confidential panel feedback on their peers.

Overall, the results indicate that RSP members consider that their performance is

high with adequate skills, and that their peer appraisal indicates that they are doing

well but there are areas for improvement.

The strengths of the RSP are being a team that works and supports each other,

listens and welcomes opportunities to learn new things. Members value being part

of the RSP and continually learn from the work that they do, and the support

provided.

The learning outcomes are around ensuring that timescales for completion of tasks

are met and that everyone contributes in a way that meets their availability, skills

and interests.

Positively the RSP welcomes an inclusive Chair who brings a professional approach

to managing meetings and delivery of RSP work.

To meet RSP member needs we will be:

o Increasing training to capacity build members in note taking, verbal and

written feedback, organising and facilitating Focus Groups, report writing

and presentations.

o Undertake succession planning and capacity building through sharing

opportunities with all RSP members to build their skills and knowledge, such

as rotating opportunities to Chair meetings.

6. Work planned for 2019/20

All the standard RSP activities regarding meetings and work will continue.

Including:

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Member elections October 2019

Interim appraisals November 2019

Team building event August 2019

Recruitment and induction of new members August/September 2019

Monthly Scrutiny meetings

Working groups

Training

2 full-Service Reviews

Service areas selected for review include, voids and estate services.

The RSP has proposed a new approach to reviews, which includes separating a

service area into defined activities. The first pilot will involve voids, which will be

completed in 2 stages so that these speeds up the delivery of reports. Stage 1 will

focus on the actual void once passed to the repairs service and the impact of the

new voids module for Service Connect allowing the report to be presented at the

RSP October meeting. Stage 2 will cover from the time that HfH is notified that a

tenant is leaving to the re-let of the property. This will be completed, and a report

provided in December 2019.

As part of our continuous monitoring of other service areas mystery shopping will

continue, with light touch reviews of sheltered and supported housing and ASB.

7. Current membership of the RSP

Anne Gibson – Chair

Viv Sharma – Vice Chair

Lucy Madigan

Bridget Lane

Gail Stean – leave of absence

Sagal Kullane

Caesar Laloba

28 June 2019

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Meeting: Board Meeting Date: 30 July 2019

Venue: Conference Room 1, 48 Station Road, Wood Green

Present: Aman Dalvi (AD) – Chair, Adzowa Kwabla-Oklikah (AKO), Cllr John Bevan (JB), Cllr Alessandra Rossetti (AR), Cllr Dana Carlin (DC), Ola Akinfe (OA), Georgina Walters (GW)

Officers in Attendance:

Sean McLaughlin (SM), Puneet Rajput (PR), Sandra Skeete (SS), Chris Liffen (CL), David Sherrington (DS), Esther Campbell (EC)

Shareholder: Dan Hawthorn (DH)

Apologies: Andrew Crompton (AC), Tom McGregor (TM), Denise Gandy (DG)

Item Minutes Action

57/19 Welcome and Apologies

AD welcomed members to the meeting. Apologies were noted as above.

58/19 Declarations of Interest

There were no declarations of interest.

59/60 Audit & Risk Committee Assurance Report

AKO presented the committee’s annual assurance report to the Board. In response to questions, she assured the Board that the committee would continue to maintain oversight of internal audit recommendations and in particular high priority recommendations and those relating to limited assurance.

The Board received the report and thanked AKO.

60/19 Annual Financial Statements 2018-19

The financial statements had been reviewed by the Audit & Risk Committee and were recommended to the Board for approval now that information on the pension liability had been agreed with the external auditor.

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It was noted that the external auditor was unable to attend the Board meeting but had held a closed session with the Audit & Risk Committee to discuss the audit process. There were no issues arising and the audit process had run smoothly.

There was a discussion in relation to the pension liability. EC confirmed that the reported loss was entirely due to the pension liability and an accounting adjustment as opposed to a cash movement.

JB asked about the outstanding loan on the Move 51 accounts and the audit fee incurred to audit a non-trading body. The council had previously agreed that the loan would be written off and DH was asked to progress this.

The Board was pleased that the accounts had received an unqualified audit and asked for their thanks to be passed to the Finance team.

The Board approved the financial statements for HfH for 2018-19.

DH

61/19 Meeting Minutes

The minutes of the Board meeting held on 11 June were approved as an accurate record of the meeting and signed by the Chair.

The notes of the Board strategy away day held on 15 June were noted.

62/19 Actions Log

The action updates were noted.

63/19 Chair’s Report

The Chair informed the Board of the outcome from the process to recruit two new Board members and the recruitment panel’s recommendation to appoint new Board members.

The Board approved the appointment of Chris Harris and Paul Rickard to the Board with effect from 24 September.

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AD informed the Board of his and JB’s visit to the Enterprise Centre on Broadwater Farm. There were a number of concerns discussed with the Board who were keen to see action take place. AD asked for a report on options for the next Board meeting.

DS updated the Board in relation to the block parties that had recently taken place at Broadwater Farm. There had been effective collaboration with partners, including the police. The risk of similar parties over the summer months would have to be managed carefully.

DS

64/19 Managing Director’s Report

SM drew the Board’s attention to the salient points in his report.

In relation to Facilities Management (FM) and the council’s decision to work with HfH and internal services to create a hybrid in house model for FM services, decisions would need to be made outside of the cycle of Board meetings.

The Board agreed to delegate authority to the Chair and Vice Chair to make any decisions in relation to HfH supporting the council to in source the FM service.

The Board approved a proposal to set up a Haringey Community FoodBox project to provide those in crisis with a seven-day supply of food and access to other support services.

Recruitment to appoint a new Director of Operations had been unsuccessful. An interim would be recruited to take over from SS. Permanent recruitment would commence again later in the year.

65/19 Delivery of Gas Servicing, Installation and Maintenance

CL presented an options appraisal for in sourcing the gas servicing, installation and maintenance contract. The report was considered well written and balanced. A lengthy discussion ensued which covered:

• Alignment with council strategy• Financial modelling and sensitivities• Risks

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• Any potential impact from a future review of HfH• Good performance from the current contractors• Marginal financial gains at best from in sourcing• Brexit uncertainty and the impact on recruitment

and supply chain• AC had provided written concern in relation to the

risk and cost of insourcing

In response to a question, CL confirmed that an incremental hybrid approach was a workable option. OA commented that a hybrid approach would not generate any cost savings as mobilisation costs would still be incurred.

GW did not support the proposal to in source. JB was in support of fully insourcing the contract. All other Board members favoured exploration of a hybrid option.

The Board agreed to: i) Delegate authority to Aman Dalvi, Ola Akinfe and

Cllr John Bevan to consider and agree optionsoutside of the cycle of Board meetings due toprocurement timescales

ii) Receive a further report at the next Board meeting.CL

66/19 Annual Report 2018/19

The Board approved the content of the annual report for 2018-19 and delegated authority for approval of the final version to the Chair and Managing Director.

67/19 AGM Resolutions

The Board approved the following resolutions to be put to the AGM on 24 September 2019:

i) Approval of the AGM minutes dated 25 September2018

ii) Approval of the group financial statements for2018-19

iii) Approval of the reappointment of the externalauditor, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

iv) Appointment of four resident Board members(three tenant and one leaseholder) followingresident elections – to be announced at the AGM

v) The retirement and re-appointment of TomMcGregor

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vi) The appointment of a new independent Boardmember

68/19 Regulatory Standards Compliance Assessments

DC questioned the assessment of full compliance with tackling antisocial behaviour (ASB) and requested a further report to the Board on this. AD requested more information on areas of partial and non-compliance in a follow up report to the Board. JB questioned the adequacy of funding to meet the Decent Homes Standard due to other costs pressures such as fire safety works. CL was currently in discussion with the council about this.

The Board reviewed and approved the assessments of compliance with the Regulator’s consumer standards subject to further probity identified.

SS

ELT

69/19 Health and Safety Report

The Board commented on gas safety compliance for nightly purchased annexes. There was a moral and ethical responsibility, if not legal, to ensure compliance. [Post meeting note – of the 17 CP12s reported out of date as at June, this is now down to 7].

JB commented on the need to keep balconies on estates clear for fire safety. GW added that this was also the case for communal landings and hallways. SM updated the Board on an assertive approach being taken with rolling out a clear communal area policy and positive results achieved with pilots.

70/19 Performance Report

The Board expressed concern with performance on complaints and the numbers progressing to the Ombudsman. The number of Members Enquiries was a reputational issue and performance needed to improve in this area.

In relation to sickness, the number of long-term cases had reduced, and actions were being taken to tackle stress related absence including training and wellbeing initiatives.

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In relation to voids, process improvements were needed to drive down turnaround time and HfH would be looking at replicating service improvement techniques used successfully by the council to improve the call centre service.

Systemic issues relating to leadership, performance and use of technology were also being addressed.

71/19 Finance Report

The HfH company account was projected to overspend by £318k at period 3 (June 2019). Training on budget management for budget holders was being rolled out to improve the accuracy of budget management and forecasting.

JB commented on the difficulties with an annual management fee settlement process and asked for this to be reviewed.

DH/EC

72/19 Audit & Risk Committee Meeting 9 July 2019

The committee Chair’s report was noted.

73/19 Any Other Business

The Board noted this was GW’s last Board meeting and that she would be retiring from the Board after completing her full term of nine years.

AD thanked GW for her dedication to the role, the valuable resident insight she had brought to the Board and her good judgement and contribution over the years. He presented her with flowers and wished her well for the future.

The meeting closed at 20:47

Signed:

Date:

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Summary of Decisions 30 July 2019 Agenda Item

No. Decision

Financial statements 2018-19

60/19 The Board approved the annual financial statements 2018-19 for HfH.

Chair’s report – Board appointments

63/19 The Board approved the appointment of Paul Rickard and Chris Harris to the Board with effect from 24 September 2019.

MD’s report – Insourcing

64/19 The Board agreed to delegate authority to the Chair and Vice Chair to make any decisions in relation to HfH supporting the council to in source the FM service.

MD’s report – FoodBox service

64/19 The Board approved a proposal to set up a Haringey Community FoodBox project to provide those in crisis with a seven-day supply of food and access to other support services.

Gas servicing, installation and maintenance

65/19 The Board agreed to delegate authority to Aman Dalvi, Ola Akinfe and Cllr John Bevan to consider and agree options outside of the cycle of Board meetings due to procurement timescales; and to receive a further report at the next Board meeting.

Annual report 2018-19 66/19 The Board approved the content of the annual report for 2018-19 and delegated authority for approval of the final version to the Chair and Managing Director. Board approved revised Financial Regulations for HfH

AGM resolutions 67/19 The Board approved resolutions to be put to the AGM on 24 September 2019 Regulatory standards compliance assessments

51/19 The Board reviewed and approved the assessments of compliance with the Regulator’s consumer standards subject to further probity identified.

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Action log Date of meeting

Agenda item

Action Action owner

Target completion

date

Status and comments

27/11/18 93/18 Programme of themed meetings with councillors to be introduced for 2019

PR Feb-19 Jul-19

Please see proposal in Managing Director’s report

30/07/19 60/19 Council to consider write off of M51 loan

DH An update will be given at the Board meeting

30/07/19 63/19 Broadwater Farm options report DS Sept-19 Complete – this is on the agenda

30/07/19 65/19 Options report on gas servicing, installation and maintenance

CL Sept-19 This has been suspended

30/07/19 68/19 Report on management of ASB SS Sept-19 Complete – this is on the agenda

30/07/19 68/19 Exception report on regulatory compliance

ELT Sept-19 Complete – this is covered in the performance report

30/07/19 71/19 Annual management fee settlement process to be reviewed

DH/EC Sept-19 Complete – this has been reviewed as part of the HRA business planning and there are no cuts to the fee in the current plan.

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Title Managing Director’s Report

Agenda item 7


Classification Part Confidential, Part Public

Report author Sean McLaughlin, Managing Director


Contact telephone 020 8489 3802

CONFIDENTIAL SECTION

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PUBLIC SECTION

1. Business growth and the future of Homes for Haringey

The July Board decision on the gas contracts was finely balanced, and the Board

nominated a sub-group of the Chair, Ola Akinfe and Councillor John Bevan to consider

varying this decision if necessary. On 16 August 2019 I wrote the Chair recommending

that we continue with an outsourced arrangement for the gas contracts in view of the new

risks to setting up an in-house service. These Board members agreed to the

recommendation, so we are procuring external providers for this service.

2. Board opportunities to meet public and staff

In previous years HfH has held a public relations type event, usually tagged on to the

formal AGM, to showcase the good work of the organisation and how it has continued to

benefit the Haringey community. More recently we have organised similar meetings

specifically for Haringey Councillors as part of an induction to HfH. Both these types of

events have been well received and they also present an opportunity to thank partner

organisations who work with HfH and build on good relationships with stakeholders and

interested parties. We are considering re-introducing this type of event and would

welcome the Board’s views and suggestions on this. If there is an appetite for this and the

Board feels that we should be doing more to promote our work, we will look to organise

an evening event early in the New Year.

We are arranging another Staff on Site Day on 1 November, when volunteers from HfH

will help to improve community facilities at Russell Road, where there is a hostel for

homeless families on the estate. Board members who wish to be involved can let me

know and I will ensure they can take part.

We are planning the annual staff conference, which will take place on 5 December. The

most likely format is a half day event, repeated in the afternoon to maximise the number

of staff who can attend. This will be open to Board members – again, please let me know

if you would like to attend.

3. Senior Operations Staff

Gerri Scott is now Interim Director of Operations, after Sandra Skeete left to become

Chief Executive of Octavia Hill Housing Association. Gerri was Director of Housing at

Southwark (London’s largest local authority landlord) from 2011 to 2018, where she also

held a corporate responsibility for modernisation. Since becoming a freelance

management consultant, she has been the Interim Director of Housing at Havering

Council, and provided change management support to public sector bodies, among other

assignments.

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Homes for Haringey Board of Management Meeting 24 September 2019

Tracey Downie is Head of Income Management, where we are seeing important

performance improvements. Jonathan Gregory is Director of Estates and

Neighbourhoods. He is responsible for improving the quality of estate services, security

and neighbourhood management.

4. Awards Nominations

I am delighted to report that we have been shortlisted in four categories for the annual

Women in Housing Awards – our nominees are Hyacinth Foster, Esther Campbell, Denise

Gandy and the Hearthstone Project. We have also been shortlisted in two categories of

the annual Housing 24 awards – the Repairs Service and Denise Gandy (again!).

5. Winter Readiness

Last winter 21 HfH staff volunteers visited 171 vulnerable residents who are most at risk of

isolation. The visits resulted in referrals to local activities, financial inclusion help,

supported housing and social events, as well as some safeguarding referrals and housing

repairs. We had very positive feedback from the volunteers and residents so we will repeat

the exercise this year. We have identified 245 tenants with a high level of vulnerability

and over 4,000 vulnerable tenants in total, so we want to involve Public Health and other

partners in planning this year’s programme.

6. Apprentices

We are continuing to make good progress towards our aim to have 5% of our workforce

as apprentices by the end of this year. In the week of 9 September, 11 new apprentices

were appointed in the repairs service subject to Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

Three were nominated by Children’s and Young People’s Services and the other 8 are all

local residents.

Sean McLaughlin

Managing Director

HfH Board Meeting 24 September 2019

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Title HfH Performance Report

Agenda item 8



Report author Carl Doogan, Head of Business Improvement



1. Introduction

1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide the Board with an overview of Homes for

Haringey’s (HfH) current performance (against a suite of key indicators agreed with

the Board), an update on progress made with delivering the Business Plan objectives

for 2019/20 and progress with work required to respond to areas of non or partial

compliance with Regulatory Consumer Standards.

1.2 We are asking the Board to review the contents of the report and consider the main

findings and implications for HfH.

2. Background

2.1 This report presents performance information across HfH.

2.2 The three main areas of concern that require Board attention are the grading of our

estates; income collection across our general needs, sheltered, and temporary

accommodation; and the time taken to re-let our void properties.

2.3 Appendix A provides the current list of performance indicators reported to the Board

grouped under HfH’s five key strategic priorities, within the current HfH Business

Plan. The commentary aligns with the structure of the scorecard by theme and

indicator. Please note that the set of KPIs has been revised. We have applied a RAG

rating only to a handful of KPIs which in our view are the most critical ones when

reviewing the organisation’s importance.

3. Report

3.1 Update on Regulatory Compliance Assessments

A paper was presented to the Board in July 2019 providing an assessment of

compliance with the Regulatory of Social Housing’s (RSH) consumer standards. The

Neighbourhood and Community Standard is the area where an update is required:

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Work is progressing to implement a revised approach to estates grading to

ensure it accurately reflects the condition of our estates. Further detail is

provided later in this report.

A new lead for Estates Services has been appointed at Director level to help

work on delivering improvements on our estates – this includes introducing a

new Neighbourhood Maintenance & Improvement Policy.

Regarding the issue of broken window restrictors, there is an ongoing 5-year

programme with a Window Safety Programme Team (within HRS) who are

carrying out inspections and actioning any required work.

Regarding the implementation of actions relating to communal areas arising

from Fire Risk Assessments, work has been scoped in the improvement activity

for 2019/20. The costs of one example of this work was capitalised.

3.2 Business Plan Objectives 2019/20

An update on progress made with delivering some of the high-level projects from

the 19/20 Business Plan is set out below.

The handover of Birkbeck Lodge has now been completed. Housing Demand has

already started to place homeless households into the lodge on a temporary basis,

which will help contribute to reducing the Temporary Accommodation (TA) budget

pressures.

The implementation of the new Resident Engagement Strategy is on track. We

anticipate that Milton Road, Imperial Wharf and Commerce Road community

facilities are on target for being brought back into use by the end of September, with

the majority of work, checks and health and safety work completed.

The council has slightly delayed the launch of the Community Benefit Society (CBS).

HfH has not contributed to this delay and we have completed our activities in

readiness for a revised launch date.

We are envisaging some delay to finalising the development of the business and

financial model for Estates Watch. This relates to the need to review and agree the

role of concierges in helping to take this work forward.

There are three projects within the Business Plan that have not yet fully commenced.

These are:

insourcing project of gas, aids and adaptations, facilities management

(Board/LBH decisions are still being made and a project manager is to be

appointed)

the Hackitt Review (this has now gone out and our Head of H&S is writing a

report on the consultation for HfH Board)

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disrepair improvement plan (an audit of the disrepair service has been

requested and the audit recommendations will help plan service

improvements)

3.3 Performance highlights in Quarter 1 2019/20

Some of our main performance highlights in the year to date are as follows:

Tackling Homelessness

Housing Demand met their August target of reducing the number of homeless

households in temporary accommodation to 2,891 and are on track to meet the

year-end target of 2,800. This reduction is helped by Housing Demand continuing

to lower homeless acceptance rates whilst at the same time increase the number of

homeless prevention and reliefs for those presenting at the front door.

Focussing on our Customers

The percentage of estates graded at “A” and “B” fell short of the 98% target. In

addition, work is also required to ensure that grading accurately reflects the condition

of our estate. A thorough internal review has recently been completed with

recommendations covering people, systems, and processes (with specific emphasis

on internal partnership working). A new person has been brought into Estates

Services at a director level to ensure these recommendations are implemented to

improve our service to customers.

August saw the customer satisfaction level for their last repair reach 94.7%, bringing

the year-to-date figure to 91% against a target of 82%. Performance against the

other repairs indicators is not at target because jobs are being left open in order to

arrange and carry out follow on work to ensure customers remained satisfied with

the service provided.

The Project 2020 Team have provided support, employment training and advice to

152 of our Haringey residents at the end of August 2019. This is well above the

trajectory target of helping 100 residents by the end of August 2019.

Improving our Services

Whilst average general needs and sheltered re-let time performance improved in

August it remains a concern and is well above target. We are working with staff to

improve recording practices, so we have accurate information to identify

improvements. Closer monitoring of cases is required to unblock issues at an earlier

stage. We are looking to introduce an information management tool, alongside

PricewaterhouseCoopers, to help track void cases. This tool will be used across the

various teams involved in the voids process.

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Rent collection across our stock has improved compared to last month; however,

performance remains a concern. The Head of Service is working with managers and

staff to focus on: conducting case reviews of large arrears cases; performance

management of staff and providing necessary training and support; improving

performance information and stats available; and promoting payment culture

through contact at the beginning of tenancies.

Gas compliance across all tenure types (General Needs, Sheltered Housing, Hostels

& Private Sector Leased properties) has been maintained by the Mechanical &

Engineering Service at 100% since the beginning of this financial year.

For the first month this year Leasehold Services exceeded target by collecting 101.8%

of service charges due. The year-to-date position has therefore improved to 99.5%,

against the year-end target of 100.5%.

Challenges remain in trying to improve the time taken to turnaround void properties

and in meeting our income collection rate and customer complaint targets. These

areas are covered in more details in Section 3.4 of this report.

Health & Safety compliance

Compliance with our Health & Safety Fire Risk Assessments has been maintained at

100% in the year to date. We have also achieved 100% compliance for our asbestos

validations and Legionella water hygiene checks to our large schemed blocks.

3.4 Theme 2: Focussing on our Customers

Performance Indicator: 18/19

Outturn

19/20

Target

YTD

August

2019

% of estates graded at A or B by Quality Assurance

Officers – overall grade 91% 98% 95%

In-month performance was 96%, against a seasonally adjusted target of 97.8%. This

brings the year-to-date figure to 95%.

Dumping and weeds were two particular areas that failed to meet target – the majority of

dumping reports were in the north and south Tottenham areas and the main areas of

weeds failure was in the St Ann’s ward, which were sprayed in the early part of August.

Note that Veolia has responsibility for these external areas of work.

Grounds maintenance (delivered by the Council’s Parks Service) saw an improvement for

the third month in the row. However, the main area of failure for scrubs were reported in

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south Tottenham (which has been raised with the council) and the main area of concern

for tree maintenance was north Tottenham (we are currently assessing the budget position

with a view of surveying and issuing work orders for the area).

An internal review of estate cleaning and monitoring was commissioned to explore ways of

ensuring there was reliability and consistency in the performance monitoring information.

This is to ensure that it aligns with the perception of residents. The review was completed

in August and several findings and recommendations have been identified for changes to

the service. This covers people, systems, and processes with specific emphasis on internal

partnership working. A new interim Head of Service has recently started and will be

responsible for ensuring these improvements as implemented as quickly as possible.


Outturn

19/20

Target

YTD

August

2019

% of all repairs first time fixed 91% 92% 86.5%

% of emergency (and OOH) repairs completed within

timescales 96.4% 98.5% 94%

There has been a process change in the way in which ‘Emergency & Out of Hours (OOH)’

and ‘right first time’ repair work is managed. We are leaving jobs open until completion of

work, which has a negative impact on KPI reporting. For example, jobs will be kept open

for: follow on works, materials on order, more time duration for the job, or another trade

needed. However, the negative impact on the KPIs has a positive impact on ensuring

customers remain satisfied with the work carried out. This is reflected in the 91% year-to-

date satisfaction level.

3.5 Theme 3: Improving our Services


Outturn

19/20

Target

YTD

August

2019

Average re-let times (calendar days) HouseMark

Standard Let definition (GN VAVs only) 28.6 23.0 36.6

Average re-let times (calendar days) HouseMark

Standard Let definition (SH VAVs only) 46.1 30.0 49.7

The in-month performance for August GN voids is an average of 28 days for 6 voids and

36.6 days YTD. This is a reduction from last month. An analysis of the 6 voids has

identified 1 has a BV212 turnaround of over 50 days. This is of course one too many, but

an improvement compared to the 3 reported the previous month. There were 2

additional voids that have been excluded as they were let to Northolt decants.

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The in-month performance for SH voids is an average of 53 days for 8 voids, bringing the

year-to-date to 49.7 days. 2 voids were identified as having a BV212 turnaround of over

50 days. One is a 2-bed flat on the 1st floor with no lift, which has been difficult to

let. We are looking into other ways of utilising these properties. If this property was

discounted, the August average turnaround would be 24 days. We have tightened up the

viewing and resulting of offers process in SH to ensure refusals and acceptances are

processed on time.

The recent void cases have highlighted the following lessons:

We need to make sure the request for fobs and other forms of communal keys are

made at the earliest opportunity to avoid any impact on the void turnaround.

To think creatively when trying to let properties which are proving difficult

(particularly the SH units described above).

We need to ensure that voids are classified correctly i.e. as VAVs or VUNs as this

impacts on the re-let time reported. We have completed a review of the voids this

year to ensure they have been classified correctly.

Closer monitoring of cases is required to unblock issues at an earlier stage.

3.4. Performance Indicator: 18/19

Outturn

19/20

Target

YTD

August

2019

% of Stage 1 Complaints responded to within 10

working days 96% 95% 83%

% Members' Enquiries answered within 10 days 92% 95% 84%

Respond to Freedom Of Information requests within

statutory deadlines 88% 95% 88%

The Feedback Team has been trying to close down as many historic cases (over 30 days)

as possible. They have been successful in getting responses for many but this has had a

negative impact on the performance for this month. Their focus has been on customer

satisfaction by ensuring enquiries are resolved/responded to for these longstanding cases.

Operations have been an issue re historic cases, with Tenancy Management who had 10

out of the 23 historic Stage 1 cases (43%) and 12 out of 30 of the Member Enquiry

historic cases (40%). We received a larger number of FOIs than usual this month, where 4

were historic and 2 of these were Asset Management


Outturn

19/20

Target

YTD

August

2019

% of rent collected (including arrears and excluding

water rates) (GN & SH only) 99.49% 100.20% 94.96%

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The proportion of rent collected for all TA 97.27% 99% 94.77%

% of day to day Leasehold service charges collected 101% 100.5% 99.5%

GN & SH income collection has recovered since July however remains low against the

target of 100.2%. August is traditionally a very difficult time to collect income as parents

have additional spend with new school uniforms and paying holiday clubs for young

children. This is compounded by absences in the income team as a result of staff holidays.

The income team has been increasing activity recently - contacting more residents,

carrying out more visits and organising arrangements. We continue to work towards

delivering noticeable improvements for quarter 3 targeting actions to maximise income

collection.

TA income collection improved this month and some of the delayed bulk Discretionary

Housing Payments (DHP) have now been received (NB. In July we reported a delay in

approving extensions of DHPs. We are also now visiting some of our residents who have

not paid or engaged with us for some time and getting positive results. We remain on

track to meet target by the end of quarter 3.

In terms of Leasehold collection rate, August is normally a quiet month, for both staff and

residents. However, we’ve collected almost £641k in 19/20, vs £481k for Aug 18/19. In

addition, £229k more for the year to date than at the same point last year. Casework

continues to be thorough and rigorous, with the team using the last few weeks

productively to dig into the detail of difficult arrears cases. This typically leads to either

payment arrangements or judgements, which we expect a lender to settle in due course.

We will continue to work towards delivering improvements and boosting collections

performance in Q3 and beyond.

3.6 Ombudsman Cases 2019/20

This report provides an overview on all Ombudsman cases closed in the period from the

last report 1st

July to 13th

September 2019 and all cases open with the Ombudsman. The

Ombudsman closed seven cases during this period. Below is a break down by each

Directorate with outcome:

1 Case for Housing Demand

Upheld Maladministration and Injustice

1 Case for Housing Operations

Not Upheld – No further action

5 Cases for Property Services

2 Closed after Initial Enquiry – out of jurisdiction

2 Upheld Maladministration and Injustice

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1 Not Upheld – No further action

The Ombudsman awarded compensation of £2,650 in total in respect of these cases.

HfH currently have nine cases open with the Ombudsman: five in Property Services, three

in Housing Operations and one Housing Demand. We will be providing a full report to

the next Board meeting on all subsequent cases closed.

4. Recommendation

4.1 The Board is recommended to review the contents of this report and consider the

main findings and implications for HfH.

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Appendix A - KPI Scorecard

Key Performance IndicatorsYear To Date August 2019All Figures are based on Year To Date progress, i.e. 01 April 2019 to 30 June 2019

Theme/Performance Indicator 18/19Outturn

19/20Target

19/20Tolerance

Latest Performance

Direction of Travel

Homeless acceptances per 1,000 people in the Borough 1.17 2.00 2.20 1.14 Homeless preventions per 1,000 people in the Borough 4.01 2.50 2.30 4.59

What is your overall satisfaction with your last repair? 83.2% 82.0% 81.0% 91.00 % of estates graded at A or B by Quality Assurance Officers -Overall Grade 98.1% 98.0% 96.0% 95.00 % of all repairs first time fixed(not including programmed works) 91.0% 92.0% 91.0% 86.50

% of Emergency (& OOH) repairs completed within timescale 96.4% 98.5% 98.0% 94.00 Capital Programme: % of residents satisfied with outcome of works 98.2% 95.0% 93.0% 100% N/A

Number of Disrepair Cases in progress NEW No target Lower is Better not available

Average relet times (calendar days) (General Needs VAVs only) 28.6 23 days 25 days 36.60 Average relet times (calendar days) (Sheltered Housing VAVs only) 46.1 30 days 35 days 49.70 % of rent collected (including arrears and excluding water rates)(GN & SH only) 99.18% 100.20% 100.00% 94.96

The proportion of rent collected for all temporary accommodation 97.77% 99.00% 97.60% 94.77

% of day to day Leasehold service charges collected 101.0% 100.5% 100.0% 99.50 % of properties with valid gas certificates GN/SH/HOS/PSL)Council properties (GN, SH & HOS only) 100% 100% 100% 100.00 % of Stage 1 Complaints responded to within 10 working days 92% 95% 93% 83.00 % Members' Enquiries answered within 10 days 96% 95% 93% 84.00

Respond to Freedom of Information Requests within Statutory Deadlines 88% 95% 90% 88.00

Number of Ombudsman investigations opened YTD (cumulative) 43 Lower is Better Lower is Better 12

Average number of working days lost due to sickness per employee (HouseMark definition) 13.2 6 days (Q2) 6 days (Q2) 5.4

Percentage of agency workers 13.2% No target Lower is Better 13.3% Percentage of apprentices recruited NEW 5% 5% 1.1%

% of homes non decent 17.0% 14% Lower is Better Due Sept 2019 Bi-Annual

Performance against Capital Programme NEW Due Oct 2019

% of capital projects completed in time Nil Return 90.0% 85.0% 100.00 N/A

Number of homeless households in temporary accommodation 2,938 2,800 Not Set 2,891 % of call centre abandonments (all queues) 10.0% 5% Not Set 6.2%

Developing our Organisation

Investing in our Homes

Council performance indicators

Tackling Homelessness

Focussing on our Customers

Improving our Services

Business Improvement

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Title Finance Report

Agenda item 9

Report for Decision


Report author Esther Campbell, Financial Controller



1. Introduction 1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide the Board with an update of

the 2019/20 financial position for the company and managed budgets.

2. HfH Management Fee 2.1 The 2019/20 HfH management fee is £44.4m, of which £4.2m relates

to Housing Demand.

2.2 The final SLA charges for 2019/20 have still not been confirmed by the Council; this will necessitate an adjustment to the management fee once agreed.

2.3 The year-end projection is an overspend of £513k due to unbudgeted pressures. This projection is stated after the inclusion of a contribution from reserves of £191k to cover the pressure arising from the spinal pay realignment.

2.4 Unbudgeted pressures have resulted in overspends in Corporate Affairs, Operations and Property Services: 2.4.1 Within Corporate Affairs, cost pressures have arisen due to

additional resources required for the OHMS upgrade and increased licensing fees. There is an overspend on training costs due to the launch of the company-wide management training commencing in September 2019, as well as the increased provision of training courses for staff.

2.4.2 Within Operations, additional resources were required for the Income Management and Tenancy Services team, creating a cost pressure.

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2.4.3 Within Property Services, a pressure has arisen due to unbudgeted costs for staff working on the Broadwater Farm project.

2.5 The Managing Director has written to all budget holders throughout the company to emphasise the need to identify and release savings to meet these cost pressures.

2.6 Finance training for budget holders has been implemented; to date, three sessions have been carried out to assist budget holders with their budgetary control and financial management responsibilities. Feedback from the training sessions has been very positive, with attendees feeling more informed afterwards.

2.7 A breakdown of the HfH management fee budgets and outturns per team can be found in Appendix 1.

Apprentice Levy

2.8 HfH has been making compulsory levy payments since April 2017. Funds must be used within two years of being paid in, otherwise they are clawed back by the Government. Clawed back funds represent a charge to the revenue account.

2.9 As at 31 August 2019, HfH has paid £211,603 into the apprentice fund, to which the Government increased by up to 10%, making a total contribution to the fund of £232,732. The first payments from the fund were made in August; £2,560 has been paid out to date. The total value of funds that have been clawed back due to non-use is £30,370, resulting in a reduced balance of £199,802 in the fund.

HfH Ringfenced reserves

2.10 The level of funds in the ringfenced reserve is £1.11m, which has been arrived at as follows:

Opening reserves as at 1 April 2019 £’000 1,425

Committed for Growth (64) Committed for Disrepair Committed for Pay Realignment Committed for Foodbox Pilot

(50) (191) (20)

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Balance of reserves in 2019/20 1,100

2.11 Board approval is sought for the use of £55k from reserves to fund investment in a new HR IT system. If an in-year underspend in the company accounts materialises, use of reserves will not be necessary.

3. HRA Managed Accounts 3.1 The HRA managed accounts are projecting an income deficit of

£187k. The deficit is due to projected overspends on the repairs and maintenance of hostels (£303k) and council tax payments on void Broadwater Farm properties (£303k), which have been reduced by a projected surplus of income on rent and service charges.

3.2 A breakdown of the HRA managed budgets and outturn can be found in Appendix 2.

4. HRA Capital programme 4.1 The HRA capital programme is projected to underspend by £7.6m

at year-end, due to slippage. Within the programme, the projection for External Works has reduced by £12m based on the cost and level of works expected to be carried out this year. This variance has been used to cover the additional unbudgeted works on Broadwater Farm, on the assumption that the works will be approved at the November Cabinet meeting. The £12m, however, will be needed next year and will be included as part of the carry forward request at year-end.

4.2 A breakdown of the HRA capital programme, along with information relating to each scheme, can be found in Appendix 3.

5. Temporary Accommodation 5.1 The projection for temporary accommodation is an overspend of

£2,239k. As part of the Council’s 2019/20 savings, the Temporary Accommodation budgets were reduced by £920k, to be offset by an increase in income expected from the Flexible Housing Support Grant (FHSG) to cover this.

5.2 As stated previously, cost pressures have arisen on the repairs and maintenance of PSL properties. These have now been quantified and included in the forecast. There is also an increased contribution

35

to the Bad Debt Provision based on last year’s level of debt at year-end.

5.3 The overspend will be met by income from the FHSG.

6. Recommendation 6.1 The Board is recommended to:

a) Note the contents of this report. b) Approve the use of £55k from reserves to fund investment in a

new HR IT system, subject to the initial use of any available in-year underspend.

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Appendix 1: 2019/20 HfH budgets by team

Budget

£000s

YTD Actual

(incl

Accruals)

£000s

p.5 EOY

Forecast

Spend

£000s

p.5

Forecast

Spend

Variance

£000s

Prior

Months

Variance

£000s

Month on

Month

Movement

£000s

Managing Director's Office 271 113 269 (1) (4) 3

New Business 108 36 98 (10) - (10)

Managing Director's - Directorate 378 149 366 (11) (4) (7)

Director of Corporate Affairs 132 53 132 0 0 -

Finance 261 76 262 0 (0) 1

Housing Information 640 256 696 56 47 9

Business Improvement 471 145 450 (21) (21) -

Procurement 167 87 168 1 0 1

Communications 281 102 294 13 4 9

Governance 283 107 263 (20) 18 (38)

People Management 324 158 372 48 100 (51)

Corporate Affairs - Directorate 2,560 983 2,638 78 148 (71)

HRA Management Fee (40,253) (16,772) (40,253) - - -

GF Management Fee (4,204) (1,752) (4,204) - - -

Overheads - (LBH Corporate Service Level Agreements) 3,970 (200) 3,973 3 - 3

Overheads - (HfH Insurance) 338 562 335 (2) (2) -

Overheads - (HfH Accommodation + Central costs) 762 78 777 15 - 15

HfH CONTINGENCY - - - - - -

Corporately Managed - Directorate (39,387) (18,084) (39,372) 16 (2) 18

Director of Operations 116 80 284 168 76 91

Community & Customer Relations 1,054 444 1,000 (55) (49) (6)

Estates & Neighbourhood Services 4,091 1,523 4,163 72 84 (12)

Tenancy Services 4,108 2,126 3,949 (159) (76) (83)

Income Management 2,472 1,060 2,893 421 474 (52)

Voids Management - 9 9 9 - 9

OPERATIONS (Hsg Mgt) - Directorate 11,840 5,242 12,297 457 509 (52)

Client Services & Annual Maintenance (CS&AM) 5,681 2,976 5,444 (237) (45) (192)

Disrepair Structure & Compensation 1,327 552 1,483 156 1 155

Repairs Contract (Non-HRS) 5 (12) 5 - - -

Repairs Contract (HRS) - Income & Capitalisation (1,100) - (1,100) - - -

Broadwater Farm Project - 478 87 87 87 -

Client Services & Annual Maintenance (CS&AM) - sub total 5,913 3,994 5,919 6 43 (37)

HRS Haringey Repairs Service - sub total 14,623 6,712 14,458 (165) (78) (87)

Director of Asset Management 301 80 247 (53) (53) -

Capital Programme (1,119) 591 (981) 138 41 97

Policy & Strategy 320 133 267 (53) (53) -

Health & Safety 686 291 852 167 177 (11)

HfH HDV Compliance - 98 - - - -

Asset Management - sub total 187 1,193 385 198 112 86

PROPERTY Services - Directorate 20,724 11,900 20,763 39 77 (38)

Dir of Hsg Demand (501) 225 (491) 10 21 (11)

Service Development 118 172 117 (1) 1 (2)

Housing Supply 941 408 965 24 43 (19)

Housing Needs 1,803 1,050 1,786 (17) (69) 52

Occupancy Management 1,262 595 1,205 (57) (42) (15)

Hearthstone 263 93 239 (24) (24) 0

HOUSING DEMAND - Directorate 3,885 2,543 3,821 (65) (70) 5

-

(Surplus) / Deficit - Totals - 2,733 513 513 659 (146)

HfH - Company Accounts

Period 5 (August) 2019/20

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Appendix 2: 2019/20 HRA managed accounts

Budget

£000s

YTD Actual

(incl

Accruals)

£000s

p.5 EOY

Forecast

Spend £000s

p.5 Forecast

Spend

Variance

£000s

Prior

Months

Variance

£000s

Month on

Month

Movement

£000s

Dwellings Rent Income (79,091) (32,035) (79,299) (208) (203) (5)

Hostels Rent Income (1,967) (751) (1,861) 106 106 0

Garages Income (740) (328) (837) (97) (102) 5

Shops Income (738) (401) (738) - - -

Rental Income - Total (82,536) (33,515) (82,734) (198) (199) 1

Leasehold Service Charge Income - Total (6,842) (7,006) (7,006) (164) (136) (29)

District Heating (294) (241) (596) (302) (232) (70)

Light & Power (1,098) (436) (1,074) 24 17 7

Supported Housing (1,495) (603) (1,488) 7 (0) 8

Concierge (1,668) (627) (1,540) 128 97 31

Grounds Maintenance (2,525) (1,002) (2,473) 52 42 10

Caretaking (1,874) (708) (1,793) 81 70 11

Waste Management (2,187) (914) (2,256) (70) (77) 8

Tenant Service Charge Income - Total (11,140) (4,531) (11,219) (80) (85) 5

Hostels Service Charge Income - Total (332) (131) (325) 7 7 (0)

Estate Controlled Parking (Income) - Total - 23 - - - -

Water Rates Receivable (Income) -Total - (1) - - - -

Total Income (100,850) (45,162) (101,285) (435) (413) (23)

Water Rates Payable - 3 - - - -

Corporate Overheads 107 123 123 16 - 16

Tenants Incentive 375 123 375 - (34) 34

Council Tax - Void Properties 150 111 453 303 317 (14)

Housing Management Costs - Total 632 361 951 319 283 36

Shops - NNDR/Repairs/Legal - Total - 1 - - - -

Increase in Bad Debt Provision - Leasehold Serv. Chgs 18 - 18 - - -

Increase in Bad Debt Provision - Dwellings 656 - 656 - - -

Increase in Bad Debt Provision - Hostels 68 (31) 68 - - -

Bad Debt Provision - Total 742 (31) 742 - - -

Supporting People 1,816 732 1,816 - - -

Waste Management 2,789 18 2,789 - - -

Grounds Maintenance 1,838 99 1,838 - - -

Estate Controlled Parking 116 (16) 116 - - -

Energy Costs 731 110 731 - - -

Pest Control 290 54 290 - - -

Service Charge Costs -Total 7,578 997 7,578 - - -

-

Hostels Costs - Total 624 105 927 303 303 -

Total Expenditure 9,576 1,433 10,198 622 587 36

(Surplus)/Deficit on Managed Accounts (91,274) (43,729) (91,087) 187 174 13

HRA Managed Accounts

Period 5 (August) 2019/20

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Appendix 3: 2019/20 HRA Capital Programme

Original SAP

Budget

Revised SAP

Budget

YTD Actual

Actual including Accrual

Total

Forecast Outturn

Forecast Variance

Prior Months

Variance

Month on Month

Movement

£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000sH207 Estate Improvement 0 800 59 59 800 0 0 0 Full spend projected.H210 Planned Preventative Maintenance (Windows)

0 0 8 8 162 162 162 0 Budget to be established for the window maintenance programme.

H211 Structural Works 1,560 1,560 169 169 1,560 0 -248 248 Full spend projected.H212 Extensive Works Voids 522 739 78 78 739 0 -139 139 This is a demand lead programme and the spend is

dependant on the number of voids becoming available during the year. Original budget increased due to carry forward being agreed.

H215 Boiler Replacement 3,640 3,640 7 7 3,493 -147 -390 243 This is a demand lead project and spend is dependent on the number of boilers that will have to be replaced.

H216 Capitalised Voids Over £10k 520 520 0 0 520 0 0 0 Full spend projected. This is a demand lead programme and the spend is dependent on the number of propertied becoming void during the year

H218 Lift Improvements 210 470 94 94 302 -168 -182 14 Variance due to additional works.H229 Decent Homes Standard 0 3,100 -721 -721 2,820 -280 500 -780 Variance due final accounts been agreed.H235 Asbestos Removal 229 229 65 65 229 0 0 0 Full spend projected

This is a demand lead projectH243 Mechanical & Electrical Works 1,249 2,899 771 771 1,856 -1,043 -956 -87 Variance due to original budget being increased due

to the carry forward being agreed.H244 Professional Fees 2,064 2,064 0 0 2,300 236 236 0 Variance due to use of agency staff until new structure

is in placeH247 Fire Protection Works 2,602 6,602 229 229 6,602 0 0 0 Full spend projectedH257 Conversions & Extensions 0 0 4 4 2 2 2 0 Variance is due to settlement of final accountsH265 Preparatory Works 0 36 159 47 45 9 0 9 Full spend projected. Movement due the carry forward

being agreed.H268 Noel Park Pods 4,689 4,728 51 51 2,633 -2,095 -2,095 0 The budget set higher than the projected spendH269 BWF Remedial Works 0 6,000 1,904 1,904 15,000 9,000 2,089 6,911 Funding has been agreed in principle and approval will

be sought for variance at the October Cabinet Virements will take place between programme heads.

BWF Northolt Rehousing Cost 0 1,100 294 294 1,100 0 0 0 Full spend projectedInternal Works Programme 5,833 5,833 0 0 3,706 -2,127 -233 -1,894 £2.1m to fund additional K&B in the HDs budget

HRA Capital Programme

Comments

39

Original SAP

Budget

Revised SAP

Budget

YTD Actual

Actual including Accrual

Total

Forecast Outturn

Forecast Variance

Prior Months

Variance

Month on Month

Movement

£000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s £000s

HRA Capital Programme

Comments

External/Communal Works 27,719 27,719 6 118 16,478 -11,241 1,254 -12,495 Variance due to delays in the design programme. Send may improve if report is approved in the October Cabinet.

Total HfH Managed Capital 50,837 68,039 3,177 3,177 60,347 -7,692 0 -7,692

40

Homes for Haringey



Title Broadwater Farm programme update

Agenda item 11

Report for Information


Report author David Sherrington, Director of Broadwater Farm


Contact telephone 0208489 4487

1. Introduction

1.1 The purpose of this report is to provide the Board with an update on the

Broadwater Farm programme.

2. Background

2.1 Homes for Haringey and Haringey Council are working collaboratively on a

shared programme of activity on Broadwater Farm.

2.2 The programme is set out across nine key areas, updates for which are provided

in the body of this report.

2.3 The work originally emerged as a result of serious structural failings within

blocks on the estate identified after investigative surveys.

3. Rehousing update

3.1 Two blocks (Tangmere and Northolt) are currently being decanted.

3.2 All secure tenants have now moved from Tangmere and agreement has been

reached with six leaseholders (from a total of 12) to sell their homes.

Negotiations are ongoing with the remainder.

3.3 53 tenants have now either moved or agreed to move from Northolt (from a

total of 83). The decant is going well and currently all tenants are moving via

the choice based letting system. We remain on target for all secure tenants to

have moved by February 2020. There are 14 leaseholders within the block with

whom we are negotiating sale prices. One sale has been agreed so far. Due to

the low valuations of flats within Northolt the process is likely to be protracted.

3.4 Post-move visits are being carried out with all tenants who move, and feedback

so far has, by in large, been positive.

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Homes for Haringey


4. Demolition update

4.1 The tender documents and routes to market on the demolition projects have

now been agreed. Procurement will commence once we have greater certainty

over the likely date of vacant possession of either block.

5. New homes

5.1 We are out tender on a design team to lead the development of proposals for

new homes and public realm enhancements across the estate.

5.2 Once the procurement is complete the appointment will be made by Cabinet at

its November meeting.

5.3 Once designs are finalised the council will be ballot residents on the proposals

to ensure we have their support. The precise timing of the ballot is to be

determined.

6. Anti-social behaviour

6.1 A number of initiatives are underway to tackle anti-social behaviour on the

estate. These actions are detailed in a separate confidential report

accompanying this report.

7. Enterprise units

7.1 We continue to work with the head leaseholder of the enterprise units to identify

a plan for them to vacate their current accommodation and move to newly built

accommodation that can provide amenities to residents on the estate.

7.2 We have now completed a study to identify alternative locations for the new

units and this will feed into the work of the design team currently being procured

(as set out in section five of this report).

7.3 Further design work for a new location will be undertaken by the design team

currently being procured (see section five).

8. Housing and estate management

8.1 We are working across Heads of Service to drive up standards of housing and

estate management. To date we have completed a number of initiatives,

including:

Deep cleans of stairwells and entrance lobbies

Pigeon infestation removal from tank rooms and drying rooms

Balcony clearances of litter

More active role in supporting rough sleepers on the estate

Customer care training for concierge staff

Debt and financial inclusion sessions, working with residents with a

bedroom tax deduction to ensure they are receiving the right advice and

support

53

Homes for Haringey


Detailed reviews of our systems to ensure that unauthorised occupants

and tenant deaths were processed (this work released three additional

properties into our voids system)

8.2 We are also working on the following:

The purchase of new cleaning equipment

The installation of hot water points on the estate

Pigeon proofing

Upgrades to accommodation for cleaning staff

8.3 Despite this positive work, the service needs to improve so that we are more

effectively tackling difficult challenges and maintaining improvements. We

have reviewed the management and reporting of estate services

performance across the organisation and appointed a manager at Director

level to manage estates and neighbourhoods and implement the necessary

improvements.

8.4 We are also considering strengthening the local control of all HfH services

on the estate under the management of the Director of Broadwater Farm,

which could become a template for neighbourhood management across

the borough.

9. Socio-economic programme

9.1 A number of programmes are now starting on the estate, funded by the estate

renewal fund. They are split into several areas:

Employment and training – an officer will be based on BWF full time

building a caseload of residents to support into training and work. A

discretionary fund is available to help with travel cost, childcare,

qualifications, training and clothing costs.

Positive activities for young people – a programme of activities for

young people in holiday periods, centred around bike mechanics

Thinking space – a programme of sessions for young people (aged

between 12-15) to come together regularly to discuss issues and

challenges

Community safety – an officer is based on BWF for 50% of their time

(split between BWF and Northumberland Park) working on community

safety initiatives

10. Communications and engagement

10.1 We continue to work on ways to improve communications and engage with

residents on the estate. Work to date includes:

Introduction of a new quarterly newsletter (available via the new web

section, a link to which is provided in this report)

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Homes for Haringey


Introduction of quarterly ‘Meet the Team’ sessions, where the

management team for the Broadwater farm programme are available at

the community centre to speak with residents

New quarterly estate walkabouts with residents

Fortnightly meetings with the Residents Association

Ongoing use of noticeboards onsite to update residents weekly on what

is going on

An internal staff bulletin on all work ongoing for all staff on the estate,

from the cleaning staff to back office staff, to ensure colleagues all up to

date on ongoing works

An internal staff meeting for all teams involved in providing services to

residents to encourage better cross-team working and collaboration

Introduction of a new stakeholder panel (likely in Autumn 2019) to

facilitate better communication and collaboration between key

stakeholders and influencers on the estate (for example the school, ward

members, Fusion, Parks etc)

Introduction of a new area on the Council’s website providing updates

on all BWF activity (including the newsletter)

(https://tottenham.london/explore/broadwater-farm)

11. Structural repair and refurbishment programme

11.1 Designs for the structural repairs are currently being peer reviewed by an

external structural specialist to ensure they are adequate. We expect the peer

review process to conclude in the next two weeks.

11.2 Alongside this work the refurbishment programme will address the plastic

spandrel panels on the estate (which do not meet current guidelines regarding

the external spread of fire across the façade of a building) and fire stopping

between flats (where we have identified some fire stopping issues through the

kitchen and bathroom programme).

11.3 The current programme anticipates the first works starting onsite in the summer

of 2020.

12. District heating/kitchen and bathroom programme

12.1 The new district energy network continues onsite with current works centred

around the upgrade of the energy centre and the installation of metering

equipment throughout the estate.

12.2 Alongside the kitchen and bathroom upgrades, we are replacing kitchens

and/or bathrooms in 265 homes where they failed the decent homes standard.

This work has identified some fire stopping issues between flats which will be

completed at the same time as the kitchen and bathroom works.

55

https://tottenham.london/explore/broadwater-farm

Homes for Haringey


12.3 The district heating element of the work is due to conclude this calendar year

with kitchens and bathrooms by February next year.

12.4 A report seeking an extension to the contract to cover additional costs is due to

be considered by the October Cabinet.

13. Recommendation

13.1 The Board is recommended to note the contents of this report.

56

Homes for Haringey



Title Value for Money Assessment

Agenda item 12



Report author Esther Campbell, Financial Controller



1. Introduction

1.1 The purpose of this report is to present the Board with the 2018/19

Value for Money (VfM) Assessment for Homes for Haringey.

2. Background

2.1 Following the Board approved VfM Strategy in 2018, we have now

produced a Value for Money Assessment, to demonstrate our

commitment to ensuring value for money is an integral aspect in all

our operations.

3. Value for Money Assessment

3.1 The Assessment details the actions we have implemented since

producing the Strategy, in order to embed VfM in the workplace.

3.2 A key aspect of the Assessment is use of a toolkit provided by the

Housing Quality Network (HQN), which enables us to assess our

current level of VfM across eight key areas.

3.3 We will continue to work on the areas of improvement needed in

order to strengthen our VfM approach.

4. Considerations

4.1 The Board should consider whether there is a need to create a VfM

Board champion or continue with an internal VfM lead.

4.2 The Board should review their role in HfH achieving future

efficiencies, by considering, for example, moving to digital board

papers.

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Homes for Haringey


5. Recommendation

5.1 The Board is recommended to:

a) Note the contents of the Value for Money Assessment

b) Provide feedback on additional content required for the 2019/20

Assessment, which will be incorporated into the Financial

Statements.

59

Value for Money

2018/19

Assessment

60

Homes for Haringey Ltd Page 2 of 15

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 3

SOCIAL VALUE .......................................................................................................................................... 4

PROCUREMENT ....................................................................................................................................... 4 BENCHMARKING ...................................................................................................................................... 5 VALUE FOR MONEY TOOLKIT................................................................................................................. 6 OUR HOMELESSNESS OFFER.............................................................................................................. 10 EFFICIENCIES IN THE WORKPLACE .................................................................................................... 11 FORWARD LOOK .................................................................................................................................... 12

61


INTRODUCTION Value for Money (VfM) is the optimum balance between cost and quality;

including efficiency, economy and effectiveness.

Homes for Haringey (HfH) seeks to achieve VfM in all its activities. We aim to

maximise effectiveness and efficiency for the lowest cost in all aspects of

planning, management and operations. In addition, as a social housing

provider, we will also focus on the social value of the activities and services

provided to our residents for the benefit of the wider community.

In July 2018, we presented a VfM strategy to the Board, which was subsequently

approved. The strategy has the following objectives:

To set out what VfM means to us and why we deem it important

To describe the approach, we will take to achieve VfM in the services we

provide to our stakeholders – our residents, the Council and the wider

Haringey community

To develop a culture of VfM-embedded activities throughout HfH

To ensure we optimise the use of our resources in the delivery of our

strategic aims Since producing the VfM strategy, we have:

Promoted the strategy internally to ensure all managers were aware of

the strategy and their responsibilities in achieving VfM.

Held a dedicated session at the Executive Leadership Team Away Day to

identify efficiencies to be achieved throughout the organisation. This was

then followed up with an interactive session with Heads of Service. The

achievement of these efficiencies is being regularly tracked.

Incorporated VfM into the 2019/20 budget setting process by ensuring we

identified efficiencies to meet growth and cost pressures.

Embedded VfM through the revision of financial policies – namely the

Budget Holder’s handbook and Financial Regulations – with an emphasis

on achieving VfM and demonstrating tighter controls on how we account

for (and spend) public funds.

The Regulator for Social Housing requires demonstrable outcomes for housing

providers in relation to VfM, as documented in their Value for Money 2018

standard. The production of a VfM Assessment is a regulatory requirement for

Housing Associations – not for ALMOs such as HfH – however, in order to

demonstrate our commitment to providing a value for money service, we have

committed to producing an annual assessment going forward.

The Assessment involves a consideration of VfM across all areas of our business

activities during the 2018/19 year to determine the overall level of VfM that we

deliver. Further information on the current and ongoing VfM initiatives can be

found further in this report.

62


SOCIAL VALUE We see social value as an integral part of VfM. As a social landlord, the wellbeing

of our residents is paramount to the services we deliver and an essential part of

achieving social value and a healthy and cohesive Haringey community.

To improve the wellbeing of our residents, we support and encourage

community projects within the environment of our residents. These projects are

funded by various means, which include contributions from charities, HfH staff

time and resident involvement.

We measure the impact on social value these projects have generated using a

‘Social Value Calculator’ produced by the Housing Association Charitable Trust

(HACT). We report information to the Board on this as part of our annual

assessment.

The table below provides a summary of the total social value generated by HfH

during 2018/19:

From our use of the Social Value Calculator, the results indicate that we have

generated £4.5m of social value during the 2018/19 year, giving a social value

return of £14 for every £1 invested.

PROCUREMENT

We see procurement as an important factor in achieving VfM. We are

constantly trying to improve our procurement processes to identify the most

suitable suppliers that will provide the best value from our use of public funds.

Value is defined by quality of service as well as relative cost. When carrying out

procurement evaluations, value is allocated a percentage of 60% or more, as

we deem the quality of the service more important than potential financial

savings.

Key activities and achievements during 2018/19:

Our in-house Procurement team ran 6 training sessions within the

organisation to help embed a culture of competitive selection through

procurement and to also focus on the quality of service.

Net benefit

(less cost)

Budget (£):

social impact Community Engagement projects £140,643 21 668 £3,300,608 £3,159,965 1:23.47

Project 2020 £180,000 2 195 £1,113,005 £933,005 1:6.18

Winter Readiness 1 83 £87,713 £87,713 1:87713

TOTALS £320,643 24 946 £4,501,326 £4,180,683 1:14.04

Number of

residents Total cost

Overall social

impact

Analysis of benefit Activities

Number of

activities

63


Twelve large tender processes were completed with a combined total

value of £28,981,757; five of these tender processes were outsourced to

external procurement services.

A saving of £151k in insurance costs from re-tendering our portfolio of

insurances.

The use of a wider range of procurement tools, such as a dynamic

purchasing system, has encouraged smaller contractors to pre-qualify

and tender for works and services. This approach has led to savings for

Haringey Repairs Services (HRS) as smaller contractors were awarded

works at reduced unit costs.

The provision for the maintenance and repair of community alarms had

not been tendered for some time, during which time prices had risen

significantly. The tender process has now been carried out, with financial

savings expected over the next 12 months.

We will look to ensure we capture efficiencies through the procurement process

of all our tenders, regardless of whether they lead to a cashable saving.

BENCHMARKING

We have been able to exchange data and compare ourselves with a South

East housing association with a comparable number of social housing units.

Housing provider: HfH Housing

Association

Social housing stock size: 15,104 13,853

£ £

Social Housing costs per unit 2,614 3,146

Management cost per unit 413 536

Service charge cost per unit 285 342

Maintenance cost per unit 1,039 1,280

Major Repairs cost per unit 117 369

Other cost per unit 760 619

The latest Housemark Benchmarking report for 2018/19 is not yet available,

however, from reviewing our performance based on the latest published

information (2017/18), HfH compares favourably against other housing

providers in our peer group:

Section KPI Ranking

Overheads Overheads as a % of turnover 2nd out of 12

Housing management Direct cost per property of housing management 3rd out of 14

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Responsive repairs and void works

Direct cost per property of repairs & voids works 4th out of 14

Major works and cyclical maintenance

Direct cost per property of major works and cyclical maintenance 9th out of 14

Estate services Direct cost per property of estate services 2nd out of 14

Corporate health Staff turnover 4th out of 10

Tenants satisfaction Satisfaction with repairs 2nd out of 12

VALUE FOR MONEY TOOLKIT

We used the Housing Quality Network’s (HQN) VfM toolkit to assess our current

level of VfM across the organisation. The aim of the toolkit is to allow an

organisation to appraise itself against the latest criteria for assessing VfM and

help to develop a tailored improvement plan.

The criteria used appears under eight sections:

Section 1 – The Strategic Perspective

Section 2 – Financial Strategy

Section 3 – Efficiencies and Targets

Section 4 – Costs and Comparisons

Section 5 – Effective Procurement

Section 6 – Financial and Performance Management

Section 7 – Information Management

Section 8 – Embedding a Culture of VfM

The toolkit is based upon best practice that has been applied when developing

VfM strategies. Headings contained in it reflect the key issues that are expected

within a VfM strategy. The toolkit has been tailored to remove areas not

applicable to HfH, such as new builds, development and borrowings.

Overall, our results showed good compliance against the 133 points in the toolkit

- 57% of the actions are completed, 26% are in progress and 17% have no

progress; these areas will be developed in 2019/20. The key areas for

improvement in each of the sections can be found below:

65


Section 1 – The Strategic Perspective

Section 2 – Financial Strategy

25%

38%

38%

Toolkits point progress

No progress In progress Completed

Areas for improvement:

Develop a SMART VfM

action plan and

include a VfM section

in all Board reports

which links to the

overall strategy.


Develop our financial

strategy – which

incorporates views from

our residents – then

communicate to staff

33%

56%

11%



66


Section 3 – Efficiencies and Targets

Section 4 – Costs and Comparisons

0%

33%

67%




Develop VfM targets for

support services and

consider expanding the

current targets used within

Housing Demand, to

include Hearthstone

17%

13%

71%




Demonstrable evidence of

actions taken when

benchmarked cost

comparisons are

higher/lower than average

Link movements in ratios to

the financial strategy

67


Section 5 – Effective Procurement

Section 6 – Financial and Performance Management

Section 7 – Information Management

17%

50%

33%




Comparing the cost of our

supplies and services to

similar organisations

Demonstrable evidence of

efficiencies achieved

through the procurement

Expand procurement

training to all HfH buyers

18%

24%58%




Expand existing

performance information

to include greater detail on

efficiency at an

individual/specific activity

level, such as the cost per

£1,000 of arrears collected

8%

92%




Develop cost ratios for

Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) and

Customer Access

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Section 8 – Embedding a Culture of VfM

OUR HOMELESSNESS OFFER

April 2018 saw the implementation of the Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA),

which placed new duties on housing authorities to intervene earlier to prevent

homelessness and to take reasonable steps to relieve homelessness for all

eligible applicants, not just those that have priority need under the Act.

During 2018/19 we:

Completed the conversion of a second unused building for use as

emergency accommodation. This allowed us to have better control on

the service offered to those placed there, as well as delivering an

emergency service for better value than the external providers we were

using.

Maximised grant funding available to manage the impact of the HRA. By

using grant funding, we were able to deliver a saving on our base

management fee, which assisted the Council with their wider temporary

accommodation budget pressures within the General Fund.

Restructured our staff working in Housing Demand and brought in

additional resources to provide the best possible response to this Act and

maximise the opportunities to prevent homelessness. This resulted in an

increase in the number of homelessness preventions achieved.

The homeless prevention initiatives that we have invested in have proved

to be excellent value for money compared to a placement in temporary

accommodation. For example, our average payment from the ‘flexible

homelessness prevention pot’ has been £1,530 which has, in many cases,

allowed us to avoid a costly temporary accommodation placement.

50%

22%

28%




VfM training for all staff

and Board members

Establishing VfM targets

that link to the desired

outcomes for residents

Consider creating a Board

VfM champion

69


As a result of the emphasis on prevention work, we have seen our average

number of new temporary accommodation placements fall to 43 per

month (reduced from 79 two years ago).

Despite a challenging year in terms of access to social housing lets,

increased demand at the ‘front door’ and an upward trend in

placements across London, we were able to slightly reduce our number

of temporary accommodation households from 2,963 in April 2018 to 2,952

in March 2019.

EFFICIENCIES IN THE WORKPLACE

By promoting VfM in the workplace, we have achieved many efficiencies.

Some of these highlights include:

Employment and Youth Development

We assisted young people in securing £2,400 to fund their own project at

a Community Voting Day.

We provided one-to-one advice and guidance sessions to 180 people.

We promoted the work of the team throughout HfH and as a result, 204 of

the 274 referrals to the team (75%) were from internal HfH teams. Resident Engagement

We engaged with 1,760 residents through various programmes, including

45 young people through various youth initiatives.

We facilitated 2,750 volunteer hours through community activities and

engagements.

We supported 9 resident groups to organise community events to increase

participation, consult and organise community run projects.

Financial Inclusion

We enabled 159 of our residents to benefit from the provision of energy

saving advice and installation of energy saving measures; this generated

a total savings of £293k for them through our use of the LEAP project.

Communications

We have improved the efficiency of communication with residents by

streamlining our mailout processes.

We are now using free corporate social media technology (Workplace)

provided by Facebook to improve communication within the

organisation. Workplace is the main way of getting news from across the

organisation. 454 staff members have so far signed up to it, which

represents 73% of the organisation.

70


We improved our website’s quality assurance, digital content and

accessibility so that they are now much higher than national government

benchmarks, having previously been below these. This results in an

improved user experience when accessing our website.

Training

We increased our investment in training our workforce by 12% to £185k,

from 2016/17 to 2018/19. The number of training courses in that period

also increased by 81% to 1647 courses available. Our staff attendance on

training courses increased by 88% to 1,455, meaning that in the 2018/19

year, each member of staff attended an average of 2.2 training courses

for the year, increased from an average of 1.2 courses in 2016/17.

Our investment in our people has yielded positive results; in 2018/19 we

noted a 5% improvement in our overall engagement index to 72% and an

8% improvement in overall job satisfaction to 66%. Community support

Our workforce is very adaptable; we’ve been able to mobilise teams of staff –

sometimes at short notice – to carry out additional tasks to ensure our residents

are kept safe and informed. Our staff assisted in the following projects:

Replacing the cookers at Broadwater Farm

Winter Readiness Programme

Staff on site day FORWARD LOOK

Innovation and technological advances

We are exploring innovative ways in how we carry out essential services on our

estates. At present, the cleaning of communal areas is very labour-intensive; we

have a large team of Estate Service Officers who use traditional cleaning

equipment, such as mops, buckets and brooms. We are moving towards

mechanised cleaning equipment, such as electronic floor scrubbers, that will

provide an improved standard of cleaning which is less labour-intensive.

We are also exploring options of extending our Estates Watch programme to

blocks with Concierge Services and/or high levels of Anti-Social Behaviour. Our

Estates Watch programme allows us to remotely monitor the entrances and

communal areas on specific blocks using state of the art surveillance

equipment. It also allows two-way communication with people who are

engaging in questionable behaviour and allows us to record high quality

footage that can be used to assist police in securing convictions. Feedback

from residents where Estates Watch has been installed has been very positive,

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with a high percentage of residents reporting an improvement in the satisfaction

with where they live.

We are in the process of updating our main IT systems, including OHMS, our

housing management system. The project to replace OHMS will explicitly

address weaknesses identified from our last internal review and will adhere to

the same two principles that drive our repairs system, (Service Connect) –

efficiency and customer experience – by:

o Providing a single view of the customer

o Designing services around the customer journey

o Embedding a ‘Right First Time’ culture through automating

workflows with real time exception-based dashboards

o Enabling us to extend our self-service offer to customers

In addition, there will be significant cost savings to the Council over the course

of the seven-year contract for the new system.

We are also implementing a new HR system that will empower managers to

manage their staff in a more effective way by reducing the number of bespoke

management systems in place. The new system – which is fully automated – will

improve efficiency, save time and has the increased capability to perform more

tasks and projects. It also allows a more secure and efficient way of managing

personal data as it is GDPR-compliant and provides the tools to protect personal

data from unauthorised access.

We hope to reduce the cost and time involved in printing and distributing Board

and Committee papers by supplying board members with tablet devices to

read digital papers. Approximately 1,500 sheets of paper are printed and

posted for each Board meeting. This will save on staff time, stationery and

postage.

We sought approval from our Board to explore growth opportunities and have

consulted with the Council on bringing in-house their facilities management

contract.

Culture and efficiencies

We are working towards establishing a culture where VfM is at the heart of what

we do. We have a strong focus on efficiencies – both cashable and non-

cashable – and we are raising the importance of efficiencies throughout the

organisation. We are in the process of securing an external trainer to carry out

focussed training sessions on how our managers can achieve efficiencies

without compromising on the quality of services provided.

We will use the work on efficiencies to develop our Core Offer, which will identify

the minimum service standards required under the Management Agreement,

the Council’s Borough Plan and the current Health & Safety legislation. The Core

Offer will present potential changes to the future delivery of our services, as it will

72


identify areas where we are carrying out duties over and above what is

required, often at a cost to tenants and leaseholders through service charges.

We take part in annual benchmarking to compare our costs to our peers. We’ll

be expanding our benchmarking – which historically looks at costs per property

– to look at specific costs per block. This could identify cost inefficiencies in our

management and maintenance of certain blocks, allowing us to change our

current approach. We will also look at how the costs and make up of our

services compares to the outputs achieved from our peers based on stock size;

we believe a thorough review of these areas could generate improvements in

the way we work.

We will strengthen our calculation of social value by employing HACT to perform

the assessments on our behalf; this will provide the appropriate level of

challenge and rigour to assist in our determination of social value.

Joint working with Council services

Our staff spend a lot of time engaging with residents on the phone and face-to-

face on rent collection, tenancy issues, estate cleaning and repairs. This presents

an opportunity to work with other Council services teams that need to engage

with residents but do not have the resources. This could also provide residents

with an improved customer journey, as they are not corresponding with so many

different people to get information/access to services.

Since April 2019, we’ve been working with the Council’s Commissioning Team to

review the service offer to elderly residents requiring additional care services.

We know that it is more cost-effective for residents with lower-level needs to

enter into/remain in supported housing instead of residential care and are

working with the Council to see how we can support those residents with

medium-level needs.

Service Improvements

Haringey Repairs Service (HRS) has made significant changes to the way we

operate to deliver fundamental repairs to our tenants. We shifted a stagnant

culture to a more dynamic workforce from the office to front line staff and are

a driving force to delivering customer service excellence for the organisation.

HRS has recently achieved a monthly high of 94.76% in customer satisfaction and

has introduced innovative systems to work smarter to achieve an increase in

productivity by 21%. This increase was achieved by restructuring existing teams

into neighbourhood zones and job volumes based on data from previous repairs

history. The service is continuously improving on our technology offer to residents,

with instant customer feedback and Repair APP development. Their work in

reacting to emergency repairs means that our staff can now be with the

customer within a 2-hour time period to either make safe or resolve the issue.

We are reviewing our Income Management service in order to quantify the

positive impact the additional resources have had on our collection rates and

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levels of debt. Going forward, we are reviewing our processes to maximise

collection levels and minimise the level of debt being written off each year by

using better systems, working with the Council and learning from our peers.

We will create an in-house recruitment team to effectively manage our

recruitment needs and avoid high charges incurred by using recruitment

agencies. We will also review the level of agency staff within the organisation

with a view to reducing the use of agency staff and consultants.

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Title Equality and Diversity Report

Agenda item 13



Report author Puneet Rajput, Director of Corporate Affairs


Contact telephone

020 8489 3728

1. Introduction 1.1 This report presents the Board with a progress update on activity

undertaken during the year in relation to equality, diversity and inclusion.

2. Background 2.1 The Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy is a Board approved policy

and we have agreed to provide the Board with an annual update on progress with achieving policy objectives.

2.2 There are three policy aims set out which are: a) To promote and demonstrate fairness and equality of opportunity

in the provision of services b) To promote and demonstrate fairness and equality of opportunity

in the employment of staff c) To achieve measurable progress against our equalities objectives

and ensure that we promote equality of opportunity throughout HfH and across all of our operations

3. Activity 2018/19 3.1 We have continued to build on actions and achievements previously

reported to the Board. The main areas of focus during the year and the first quarter of 2019/20 are summarised below.

3.2 Bullying, harassment and discrimination – this was identified in the latest staff survey as a key area for improvement. 35% of staff have witnessed bullying harassment or discrimination and 27% have experienced it. Both these figures are significantly above the

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benchmark and slightly up on the last staff survey in 2017. The results are also significantly higher amongst disabled staff. In response, we have reviewed our policies in this area and will be introducing a new Dignity at Work policy by the end of September. We will also be promoting the role of HR as a safe and confidential resource for reporting any concerns relating to bullying, harassment or discrimination. A follow up confidential survey is in progress to explore these issues with staff in more detail.

3.3 Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) Accreditation – Improving

the effectiveness of our ability to tackle domestic abuse is one of our business objectives and seeking DAHA accreditation will help us with this. Our residents and staff should not have to live in fear of violence or abuse and we want to be an organisation where it is part of our culture to help and support people when they need it the most. DAHA’s mission is to improve the housing sector’s response to domestic abuse through the introduction and adoption of an established set of standards and an accreditation process. We are working through implementing systems and processes to improve our effectiveness, building on the strengths of our Hearthstone and Sanctuary schemes and with a view to being inspected by DAHA by February 2020.

3.4 Training – We have continued to implement various equalities

related training for our staff so that they have a good awareness of equalities related issues, the impact on the most vulnerable in the Haringey community and how best to identify and deal with such issues. Courses that have been particularly well received and attended include LGBTQ training, dementia awareness training and mental health training.

3.5 Training for Residents – we have continued to offer training to

resident associations and their members, including training on diversity and inclusion, safeguarding, co-counselling and unconscious bias. These training courses have received good feedback and have equipped participants with knowledge and skills to value diversity and act in an inclusive way when planning and delivering community activities.

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3.6 Gender Pay Gap – Organisations with 250+ employees are required to publish their gender pay gap information by April each year. We have continued to prepare and report information in line with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017 and Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017. For 2018/19, our analysis of the difference in pay by gender revealed a mean pay gap of -4.4% i.e. the average (mean) hourly rate of pay for female employees was 4.4% higher than the average (mean) hourly rate of pay for male employees. This represents a movement of 8.6% on the previous year figure of 4.2%. The median pay gap was -3.7%. Our pay gap continues to compare favourably in comparison to the national mean of 17.4%, the public services sector mean of 9.6% and the local government mean of 9.9%.

3.7 Women in Housing Awards – Three of our senior managers have

been announced as finalists for the Women in Housing Awards 2019. Hyacinth Foster, our Employment and Social Regen Manager who runs an initiative called Project 2020; Esther Campbell, who leads the Finance team; and Denise Gandy, the Executive Director of Housing Demand, have all beaten stiff competition to be shortlisted in the national awards. This shows the depth of talent in HfH and as well as being outstanding professionals in their chosen fields, they all support many other women to make a positive contribution to public services in Haringey.

3.8 Apprenticeships – In line with our HR Strategy, we have set a target

of 5% of our workforce (30 employees) to comprise apprentices by the end of 2019. We encourage members of the Haringey community to apply for our apprenticeship positions and have had some success with our outreach and social value adding services such as Project 2020. We are on track to achieve our target this year.

3.9 Disability Panel – The panel has continued to meet and work with

staff to bring about improvements in the way services are delivered to people living with disabilities. In the last year, they have worked on the replacement of the fire doors in supported housing hubs and clusters to ensure that people with disabilities are able to use them safely. They have made a number of recommendations which are being implemented in this regard including updating support plans

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to reflect individual needs and to link the plans with fire evacuation plans. The group meets quarterly and is supported by the Community Engagement Team.

4. Considerations 4.1 The current equality, diversity and inclusion policy is two years old

and in line with our process of reviewing policies every three years, we will be presenting a revised policy and new action plan for Board review during 2020.

5. Recommendation 5.1 The Board is recommended to note progress and recommend any

other actions it would like to see in relation to the three policy objectives.

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Title Sealings Register

Agenda item 16

Report for Information


Report author Puneet Rajput, Director of Corporate Affairs


Contact telephone

020 8489 3728

1. Introduction 1.1 This report presents an extract from the statutory register of sealings

which sets out use of the company’s seal to execute (enter into) contracts.

2. Background 2.1 The Board has delegated to the executive the execution of sealed

contracts and deeds for expenditure that falls within the Board approved budget, Council capital programme or other approved programmes. Prior to this, this was a Board authority requiring the signature of either two Board members or one Board member and the secretary.

2.2 The Board has requested periodic sight of such approvals as recorded in the register of sealings.

3. Sealings Extract 3.1 The table in Appendix 1 accompanying this report sets out details of

all contracts that have been executed by seal for the period June to mid-September 2019. Sealings prior to this period have been presented to the Board.

3.2 All contracts were entered into following appropriate procurement processes (where applicable) and in accordance with our Contract Procurement Regulations.

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HOMES FOR HARINGEY REGISTER OF SEALINGS Appendix 1

Seal number

Date affixed Contract name Contract value Contract duration Full name of other party Full address for service of other party Witness 1 Witness 2

14345 11/06/2019 Service agreement for the provision of security guarding services

£378,762.96 in total

2 years plus 1 Vigilant Security Services UK Ltd

AMC Business House, 12 Cumberland Avenue, London NW10 7QL

Georgina Walters Puneet Rajput

14346 30/07/2019 JCT measured term building contract in relation to general building works

£1,296,990 in total 2 years plus 1 plus 1 Adept Roofing and Maintenance Limited

Unit E7, The Harlow Business Centre, Lovet Road, Harlow, England, CM19 5AF

John Bevan Puneet Rajput

14347 30/07/2019 Framework Agreement for the provision of fuel cards and associated services. Call off order form and call off terms.

£370,000 2 years Shell UK Oil Products Ltd Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA John Bevan Puneet Rajput

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Documents

Board of Management Meeting - Homes for Haringey · 2019-09-18 · The RSP has benefited from specialist training by the Scrutiny Champion covering GDPR and Risk Management. This