Agenda item

To hear from Councillor Sarah King, Cabinet Member for Council Homes and Hakeem Osinaike, Strategic Director of Housing on the Governance and Oversight of Housing Services, including sub-topics but not limited to

·  Managerial Oversight/Procedures to deal with estates such as Canada Water/Devon Mansions.

·  Procurement and supply chain management for Housing Services, (Plentific)

The committee then heard from Cllr King and Hakeem on the following topics

• Significant amount of work in the housing department to forensically understand the work needed to deliver good quality housing for residents; New governance procedures, Housing Oversight Board chaired by the leader of the council Cllr Kieron Williams.
• Lead Member (Cllr King) briefings - progress reports, housing investment plan, housing regulator meetings, engagement with tenants ensuring transparency.
• New appointments- Strategic Director of Housing, Director of Housing Needs, Director of Housing Repairs; Increase in skills and expertise within the housing department and the senior team.
• The Corporate Management Team (CMT) including the Chief Executive have expressed that the issues faced within the housing department and its ownership lies with the entire council and are looking to work together holistically to address these issues. The safety, satisfaction and assurance to our residents is of utmost importance to the council.

The Chair addressed the meeting expressing that the council needs to work together to rectify these issues, it’s important that the council deliver for our residents, tenants and leaseholders. Furthermore, there needs to be acknowledgement of the things that have gone wrong within housing including but not limited to Canada Estate. Devion Mansions and other housing estates. There also needs to be a deep dive into investigating the failures within housing.

The committee then asked further questions on the following themes

• Culture and the lack of political accountability in previous governance structures; Completion of fire safety remedial actions report due to Cabinet in March 2025; Political accountability for future failings in actions recommended by regulator social housing; Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for housing improvement plan.

The committee heard from Hakeem that all the fire safety remedial actions have not been completed yet, due to the lead time of 12 weeks for contractors; measuring different size fire safety doors, manufacturing doors and then agreeing a date with residents for installation.

Cllr King informed the committee that the housing investment and improvement plan has identified officers operationally responsible for specific areas, however the vast majority of political accountability lies mainly with herself, Cllr Stephanie Cryan for her Cabinet Member role in Finance and the Housing Revenue Account (HRA). In addition, the Housing Oversight Board chaired by Cllr Kieron Williams are also politically accountable. Furthermore, Cllr Helen Dennis in her Cabinet Member role for New Homes. The Housing Improvement Plan has been put together by herself and senior officers to address these issues, however there could be challenges in progress of these plans such as not being able to access tenant properties to carry out these tests, due to unavailability of residents and other factors.

In addition, Cllr King explained to the committee that she felt it was more important to prioritise putting a plan in place to address these issues, versus carrying out a root cause analysis which investigates the past. In terms of past failings there has been resident engagement to investigate the cause within Major Works programmes. Furthermore, work with the independent consultant (Pellings) and the task and finish group is still ongoing. The learnings from failings at Consort Estate being at an early stage in its major work programme has benefitted from a saving of £5m by putting in place better contractual arrangements. There also challenges within the technology used to manage housing data within the council and in general across the sector. Tech companies historically have underinvested in housing solutions, but this is changing with regulations being put on private and social landlords. The council is catching up and learning about these issues live while working on these issues.

The committee heard from Cllr King that tenant satisfaction measures survey are the best way to measure performance in housing improvement, this year’s tenant satisfaction measures have been received and is due to be published in June 2025, which would show an improvement in all areas, especially in areas of housing safety. However, this is down to communicating with residents on housing safety rather than the progress of the overall safety work being carried out. Housing complaints, enquiries and timeliness of repairs are all important KPIs. Electrical Safety Testing and Stock Condition Surveys will take a significant amount of time to complete given the high number of council homes in Southwark.

Hakeem explained to the committee that it’s difficult to give the committee a definitive date on the report for the root cause analysis as housing services are wide in range such as compliance, repairs and homelessness, and these services are also large in scale.

The Committee then asked further questions on the following points of discussion

• Key recommendations to help the housing improvement plan achieve its goals in the wider context of the support from other council departments
• Lead Member Briefing process to include housing stock issues from estate inspections, whistle-blowers, members enquiries, call centre logs and cabinet member questions. Furthermore, how this factor into the Housing Oversight Board.

Cllr King informed the committee that there have been key improvements in areas of resident and tenant engagement with help of experts from other council departments. A significant hurdle is the financial aspect of housing and the HRA which could benefit from more funding and would ensure stock condition survey targets are met sooner.

Hakeem explained to the committee that there has been exceptional support from the CMT, Chief Executive and Cabinet Member, Cllr King. In addition, the Resident Engagement Strategy is due to got out to consultation in April 2025.