Agenda item

To receive a report from Councillor Darren Merrill, Cabinet Member for Council Homes and Homelessness, Cheryl Russell, Director of Resident Services, Housing and Modernisation and Nat Stevens, Resident Involvement Manager, Housing Department on the learnings from the recent resident-led housing meetings.

The commission first heard from Councillor Darren Merrill and Cheryl Russell on the lessons learnt from the recent resident-led housing meeting

·  High number of residents were in attendance; Cabinet member and officers are working with Chairs of forums to identify issues and setting agenda suitably, given the size of the meetings; Council’s role to facilitate and provide officer support whilst giving the freedom to the Chairs to guide the meeting through the process.

·  Upcoming rent setting meeting to be managed thoroughly to ensure residents can provide their input in a methodical way.

·  Senior officers, Directors and Cabinet member attending agenda planning meetings with Chair to help inform the agenda setting; Ideal location and style of meetings needs some thought.

·  On interaction with residents, officers made a note and responded to all individual case work from identified residents except anonymous ones.

·  Planning and preparation of rent setting meetings scheduled in the diary to be carefully managed without any predetermination of issues and questions.

·  Subsequent resident meetings held in early April 2023 were successful in terms of engagement, dialogue and officer support and presentations.

The commission then asked questions around the following points

·  Council’s plans to ensure the focus of these meetings is not only on repairs and other items on the agenda are also discussed.

·  Chairmanship and proper representation; revisiting the structure of resident engagement meetings.

·  Leaseholders and tenants that attended the meeting focused mainly on repairs and rent setting was not properly discussed.

·  Updates on the resident engagement strategy from the Environment and Community Engagement Scrutiny commission

·  Reengaging residents that were dissatisfied at the last resident-led meeting

Councillor Merrill explained to the commission that Chairs’ would be guided in legislative matters with the running of the meetings especially in terms of proper and fair representation from area forums, with the hope of bringing  in more strategic items on the agenda. The commission also heard from Councillor Merrill that it is important that we review the structure with focus on feedback from grass roots level upwards to ensure fair and proper representation from residents.

Cheryl informed the commission that officers are working on identifying issues that would ensure more engagement and participation across the borough. Different areas and their local issues need to be considered when planning any engagement as some areas might require quick action as opposed to others.

Councillor Merrill informed the commission that residents being unable to get more help from the council on repairs issues has been a source of frustration. On reviewing the engagement strategy, the commission learnt that the Environment and Community Engagement Scrutiny Commission is working on recommendations which would take into account any future updates to the strategy.

The commission then learnt from Nat Stevens that out of the approximately 400 residents that attended the meeting, 41 did not provide any contact details, 7 residents are in the process of engagement and 5 residents having outstanding issues haven’t received a complete response yet due to the complex nature of their repair issues. Hybrid meetings do create issues with getting contact details for residents with specific issues due to different user names that don’t reflect their correct names etc. however, all the residents that attended had been invited to attend through the Council’s resident contact database.