Agenda item

6.1  The chair welcomed councillor Richard Livingstone (Cabinet Member for Housing), Gerri Scott (Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services) and Paul Langford (Head of Operations) to the meeting and invited them to update members on the review.

 

6.2  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported that 330 evictions had been carried out and officers looked at a sample of those cases. Members were assured that most systems were operating effectively, there were a few areas of inaccurate record keeping and members would see in the recommendations that training had been put in place for officers.

 

6.3  The sub-committee were anxious to be assured that the Mr AA case was not endemic within the department, that although there were a couple of areas where officers need to do better overall, that case was isolated in terms of customer practice.

 

6.4  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services stated there were areas for improvement and a number of recommendations that would keep officers focused. This had been a useful exercise for officers, issues were picked up during supervision and team meetings, but doing a quarterly review of a sample of cases would keep officers focused for the future.

 

6.5  The Head of Operations reported that the basis of the report was focused on the grounds for eviction, timescales in the application of any court orders, the presence of the correct orders and how officers dealt with the removal and storage of goods.

 

6.6  The key findings that came out of the review were around record keeping. Solid record keeping keeps officers honest and operating in an effective way, out of the 66 cases that were looked at which included one referral from a councillor, only one case was found that was unclear and required further investigation, officers spoke to a member of the special investigations team who recalled the eviction and clarified that nothing was left in the property, this information should have been on the system.

 

6.7  The Head of Operations assured the sub-committee that specific fields now required specific information which has tidied up the documentation of the system.

 

6.8  The presence of officers at evictions was extremely important and immediate recommendations had been put in place regarding the named officers at evictions i.e. the RSO and income team leader, and the IT changes will be in place by the 1^st February 2015.

 

6.9  A member asked with the further recommendations coming in on 1^st February 2015, will the next review be reported to the Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services?

 

6.10  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services stated that the review would be reported to her and informed members that there was a performance management framework in place and senior management team that looks at performance information on a regular basis. This will be pushed  into the performance management framework so the quarterly review of evictions will be reported to the senior management team.

 

6.11  Officers want the recommendations to be fully adopted and checked on a regular basis and this will go through the performance management framework including the senior management team and Councillor Livingstone as the cabinet member for Housing.

 

6.12  A member asked was there a need to look any further than the two years for cases of the officers concerned with Mr AA eviction?

 

6.13  The Head of Operations reported that these were very experienced officers, one officer had not worked again for the council since that situation and was on long term sick. The other 3 officers’ cases were looked at and there were not any issues arising from the review.

 

6.14  A member asked a question in relation to recommendation 5 of the report, where in the system are the checks and balances that allow you to spot something that might go wrong before it goes wrong?

 

6.15  The Head of Operations explained that issues needed to be recorded properly and timing was key in ensuring that officers going back to court from the earliest date of which the original procession order was sorted so that the clock starts ticking right back at the start. It was noticed from the review that there were 2 cases where officers went back that they would have contravened the 6 year, had we not have gone back.

 

6.16  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services stated there were strong supervision mechanisms in place, one to one with officers, review of case load on a weekly basis, team meetings as well as training and development. Management were looking at performance in the moment as well as looking at it retrospectively particularly around rent arrears and illegal occupancy. There is very close scrutiny on an ongoing basis of people’s current case loads and what they were doing with them so officers were not looking at things after the event in those areas.

 

6.17  A member asked do officers have access to a checklist that they can go through before they get to the point of eviction?

 

6.18  The Head of Operations assured members there were checklists for every stage of the process for officers and a further point was the review proved to be extremely useful and no fundamental flaws that had been found in the procedures both in the initial review or this review. It was about ensuring the application of those procedures.

 

6.19  The chair stated the sub-committee were discussing officers covering up and welcomed the details contained in the report. One of the issues brought up in the court judgement was that 2 ward councillors had raised the issue and were worried about it. With the ongoing review and the checks that officers would be doing where would be a good place for ward councillors to feed into the system, rather than members inquiries?

 

6.20  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services stated that any ward councillor should always come straight to the head of service or strategic director if they have any serious issues at all.

 

6.21  A member stated there was 1 case that was forwarded from a councillor which all looked fine, could you tell us why the councillor forwarded a case which turned out to be of no problem, did they have concerns about the case? Could you share that with us?

 

6.22  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported that she had information on that case and it was about the eviction itself and whether the eviction should have taken place and what happen to the person subsequently. She had full details and would share them with members, outside of the meeting.

 

6.23  Councillor Livingstone stated that looking at ongoing performance management officers could send an e-mail out to all councillors asking for any cases when looking at the next quarter review. Perhaps I the exercise could be repeated so that councillors know to identify those cases so we can look at them as part of the ongoing performance management.

 

6.24  A member asked who was responsible to ensure that all the necessary paperwork and procedures are followed prior to the eviction being effected, what level was that?

 

6.25  The Head of Operations reported there were different parts to the process depending on the nature of the eviction, whether it was due to illegal occupation or rent arrears.

 

6.26  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported with regards to Mr AA’s case it was how the eviction was carried out,  there was an issue with the 6 year window of opportunity but the other issue was the fact that when the eviction took place it did not have the relevant officers in attendance and the goods were removed and not stored in accordance with the procedure.

 

6.27  A member asked if officers do not follow the procedures, what were the sanctions and has the level of risk been raised?

 

6.28  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported the sanctions had always been the same, if people do not do their jobs they were disciplined. The recommendations specify fields must be completed by the officer attending the eviction and secondly that the manager was contacted while that eviction was taking place.

 

6.29  A member asked how do we empower tenants and councillors to provide the best service possible? And is the procedure comprehensive enough?

 

6.30  The Head of Operations reported that the procedures were on the council  website and available to everyone, all procedures undertaken in any area of the directorate by officers involve tenants in reviews, there was always room for improvement but the systems were in place to evolve.

 

6.31  Councillor Livingstone stated the issue here was not so much that the tenant did not know the procedures, the tenant knew the procedure pretty well and had 3 stays of the eviction process through going through the court process and that was why it ran out of time. The difficulty was not that he did not understand the procedures the problem was officers did not follow the procedures in the correct way.

 

6.32  That was the critical error, the most serious thing that the council can do as a landlord was to evict a tenant and that had significant consequences to individuals, so if ward councillors become aware of issues in terms of evictions then let the strategic director and cabinet member know so we can look into it and make sure things are being done correctly.

 

6.33  A member asked before the case goes as far as the eviction taking place, was there some kind of checklist between the legal and the housing operations team to make sure all the necessary checks have been carried out? Do you have any early warning systems in place i.e. tenancy checks?

 

6.34  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported it was very hard to get approval to evict a tenant, the burden of proof was on the evidence presented to the judge in order to get an agreement to evict was significant and our legal colleagues were very cautious and made sure we had water tight cases when going to court.

 

6.35  In this case there was a stay, so effectively the judge was not satisfied and said he was going to give the tenant another opportunity, and this can go on for some time, so the evidence you present had to be very thorough to get to evict in the first place.

 

6.36  In response to early warning systems, officers carry out 50% tenancy checks of all tenants on an annual basis, last year officers completed 100% tenancy checks. The council was probably in the best position it has been in for many years in terms of knowing who is living in our housing stock. We were also the best in the country on acting against illegal tenants.

 

6.37  A member asked if the tenant was allowed to re-enter the property to collect their goods, they may not want to leave the property and you may need to go to court to get them back out? In terms of storage of evicted tenants goods for 28 days, where was the cost implication after 28 days?

 

6.38  The Head of Operations reported that with regards to re-entry, this was managed by officers working with the tenant before the eviction, tenants were always given the opportunity to take their goods out of the property and officers would provide help or support if required.

 

6.39  There were many cases where goods had been stored, and after 28 days the goods had not been collected, these were dealt with on a case by case basis. Officers on many occasions had to work with families and make arrangements for the goods to be cleared. There was a point where the council had to take a harder line but officers do try to be supportive, the cost of storage was minimised to the council.

 

6.40  A member stated the AA case was a matter of officers covering up, the recommendations contained in the report were focused on tightening up procedures which was not the problem. Would it be possible to have an independent person present at evictions to verify that council officers had followed the procedures correctly?

 

6.41  The Strategic Director of Housing & Community Services reported if the review had revealed half of the cases were wrongly recorded or that there were issues, she would have agreed with the members and looked at how officers carry out evictions, whether we needed to have some independence in terms of witnessing what went on, but we did not find that for the vast majority of cases.

 

6.42  The evictions were carried out properly and in a very small minority of those cases the administration was poor, the recommendations contained in the report would tighten that up. Most of the staff do a very good job, this case was reported at the last meeting and was a clear example of staff not doing a good job and covering up and they have been dealt with through procedures.

 

6.43  Councillor Livingstone stated there were a number of things that went wrong in this case, the issue of timing, proper documentation and sign off none of which were present. The issue of the resident services officer not being present at the eviction and after the event the collusion of 3 officers to jointly agree statements covering each others back. They did not change the records they colluded on the statement, the record was absent and that was clear that things had not been done properly.

 

6.44  A member asked about IT hardware, some boroughs equipped their housing officers with tablets, so when they were out they could update records instantly, was that something we did as a authority?

 

6.45  The Head of Operations reported that the project that was passed to him recently and on the 29^th April 2015 we should go live with the first two applications. The process of the tenancy visit, reporting repairs and following through the repairs progress. He and the Head of Maintenance and Compliance had been sponsoring this project, working with Northgate and others to try and get something in place.

 

6.46  A member asked could officers give an update on those officers that were found guilty of gross misconduct and what was their current employment status?

 

6.47  The chair stated that if it was possible for officers to answer the question from councillor Ben Johnson outside of this meeting.