Agenda item

To hear from Councillor Kieron Williams, Leader of the Council and Althea Loderick, Chief Executive on Cabinet/Senior Management Strategic Responsibility. (To follow)

The committee then heard from Cllr Kieron Williams, Leader of the Council and Althea Loderick, Chief Executive on Cabinet/Senior Management Strategic Responsibility covering the following topics

• Post pandemic (2022) restoring council services; New Chief Executive May 2022; Independent peer review 2023 overall council services good especially Adults & Children Services, Community Safety, Economic Development, New Council Homes; Ofsted rating good for schools, youth offending services rated as good.
• Home Care satisfaction from mid-50% to mid-90%; Southwark biggest creator of Youth Apprenticeships in London; Reduction of 19% in number of children coming into care; Number of children in youth offending services reduced by 18%.
• Areas of Improvement- improving our offer to tenants and leaseholders; Detailed review of our housing services- audits; Communication to residents on improving our housing services in response to issues highlighted in audits; Work plan to look after council homes- New Strategic Director for Housing; New Cabinet Member for Council Homes working with officers on housing improvement plan.
• Self- referral to Housing regulator on electrical testing, smoke alarms and fire risk assessments; Housing regulator national framework helpful to politicians to ask the right questions about council housing services; C3 rating from regulator, however regulator confident in our plans to deliver the improvement needed.
• £250m to improve housing services especially housing repairs service, improving estates, new council homes and customer service; Building cabinet for strong leadership and Chief Executive building Senior officer team.
• Commending the work done by OSC and ward councillors for their respective wards and its residents; Council affected by austerity and now rebuilding some back-office checking services.
• Essential components of well-run and successful organisations, large organisations need clarity in the operating context, operating model, staff role & responsibilities, powers through scheme of management, budget delegation, decision making powers; Clarity in hierarchies and structures on supervision and managing staff; Performance management systems for individuals, team, departments and organisation including risks, compliance, audits etc.
• Huge demands on the housing service in day-to-day workload coupled with backlog form post-covid era, issue with skills, tools and ability to undertake tasks, limited financial resources (HRA); Structures that have now been put in place will provide residents assurance of the delivery of housing services.
• Geo-political issues have a knock-on effect on local government services; Funding settlement over 2-3 years will create financial challenges; Local Government re-organisation in London to the Mayoral model will have an impact on Local Government Authorities; Children’s Services reform with a focus on early help; Major Local and National NHS Reform; Southwark Council need to have an operating model that proactively respond and deal with these changes.
• One council working to ensure more efficient use of resources and moving away from the federated model of organising and delivering services; Reviewing procurement systems to make it a stronger procurement model; Strategy and Communities delivering transformation and change.

The committee then asked questions on the following points

• Alternate priorities and choices historically that could have resulted in a better outcome for housing services; More political will and focus on governance of housing services historically.
• Political administration holding officers accountable for the advice on the course of action.
• Communication and Engagement with residents by the council officers mainly good overall, issues arise when the delivery of services are provided by intermediaries mainly contractors (major repair works) initiating works without any engagement with residents.
• Privatisation of property and commercial development to the north of the borough and building social housing towards the south where land prices are cheaper, causing disproportionate redistribution of wealth in the borough.

The committee heard from Cllr Williams that during the pandemic it was absolutely the right choice to support residents through the pandemic, post pandemic the focus was to improve the housing repairs services. Housing services were reviewed through the audits, and failings were identified. Financial constraints due to austerity measures meant that three quarters of councils across the country had either had to reduce maintenance of their council homes or cut back on building new homes or sell-off homes. Southwark is increasing the housing repairs service and building new homes. There are examples housing department working hard to improve lives of residents, this has been captured in a documentary on work done by frontline staff in Southwark.

Cllr Williams explained to the committee that the housing Commission held in 2012 gave us three options; focus on maintaining homes or focus on making homes better and building more homes, or less focus on maintaining home and building maximum number of homes. The council and the leadership chose the third option to build maximum number of new homes, this decision was clearly important looking at the current housing waiting list of 18,0000 homes needed.

Althea informed the committee that the political direction sets the policy, and the operation is directed by officers who advise politicians on the viable course of action. Council officers are expected to provide the political leadership accurate insight into the delivery of services.

The committee heard from Cllr Williams that it’s important for politicians in leadership roles to have channels and avenues of gaining insight into delivery of services through direct briefing from officers, access to audits, independent assessments from regulator, and resident feedback by engaging with people and communities on delivery and experience of services. All these channels together but especially internal audits give the leadership the answers to identify failings in the housing service at Southwark.

The Chair expressed to the committee that we have inputs from residents at various levels and forums which are being incorporated into the new governance structure as mentioned by Cllr King. The housing commission and its recommendations had come from a great wealth of information from independent regulators and partners not connected to Southwark in anyway.

Cllr Williams explained to the committee there is no deliberate plan to privatise properties and commercial development to the north of the borough. The strategy is to obtain maximum value in building homes for our residents on land owned by the council. Residents and ward councillors have been asked to help identify sites across the borough, however it is true that the council owns more land in the middle of the borough where we have more council housing and estates. Areas such as Old Kent Road have been purchased by the council as they are less dense and more opportunity for buy to build. The council is building houses across the borough and even up near the riverfronts.

The committee heard from Althea that the council is working on strengthening the procurement model and stronger contract management in some parts of the borough. Better communication and engagement with residents on major works being undertaken, is a core focus area within the housing improvement plan led by Cllr King.

The committee then asked further questions on the following themes

• Southwark being a member-led council, the accountability of the failings in the housing service lies with Cabinet members as well as officers
• Southwark’s role in lobbying the government for the delivery of 1.5m homes nationally, stating lack of powers and finances for Southwark’s housing delivery plan.
• Principles of values and cultures of the council and its adoption within the council workforce with regards to resident experience on resolution of issues

Cllr Williams informed the committee that issues within the housing services were first uncovered by internal review and audit which was a political ask by OSC members, Cabinet members and ward councillors who raised it politically.  The self-referral to the regulator revealed the same findings already uncovered by the council. Cabinet members had asked very searching questions but weren’t given all details and information at that time. This resulted in substantial changes in the governance and oversight of safety & regulatory requirements. Southwark council will receive an extra £2.8bn for affordable housing from the government. The council needs to continue to lobby the government for more funding. The council housing summit held recently brought together many councils, residents and professional groups to collectively lobby the government for more funding.

Althea explained to the committee that since she had taken up her role, the focus has always been getting out there in the community and engaging with residents, the feedback gathered from residents has led to the development of the one council approach. The values that are being developed are following a bottom-up approach based on resident feedback and the pre-existing council values already been set. The council is also working to ensure every staff member has got clarity of their role in the council. One of the key principles of Southwark 2030 strategy is how the council works with our place and our people.

The committee then heard from Cllr Williams that there was a very clear approach in the job advert/recruitment of senior officers ensuring that we bring in people with the ethos of the council values. Cabinet members are also approaching their respective areas with questions on how our services are delivering the needs of our residents, putting residents first.

The Committee then asked further questions on the following points

• Technology and skills issues with the Housing customer management systems; Partnerships with external organisations to address the challenges in technology
• Climate emergency funding of £3.2b, understanding of the climate emergency measures such as carbon footprint within the council, achieving ambitions of climate emergency

Cllr Williams informed the committee that recruiting officers with skills in operating the technology is difficult as other organisations offer higher pay. There is on-going work in developing a much more resilient system for recording customer data. Partnership working is a part of the Southwark 2030 strategy where we work with NHS, Urban Health and the Police whilst looking at the borough holistically.

Althea explained to the commission that there is on-going work to reprocure the Enterprise Resourcing Platform, it’s important for the council to have a base level platform to understand the types of data, how it’s held and managed. This would also provide a base from where the council could access technology capital, social capital, including digital innovation and AI.

The committee then heard from Cllr Williams that there is a clear political direction when it comes to the climate emergency aims of the council; departments such as the leisure services are looking at ways to reduce the carbon footprint, being the biggest emitters with regards to swimming pools etc. However, there is more work to be done in other areas of the council.

Althea informed the committee that more work needs to be done in distilling the council’s commitment to climate emergency amongst departments, where-in it becomes an integrated part of every work process and practice in the council.

The committee then heard a summary of the discussions at this meeting

• On-going root cause assessment of Housing service issues, what went wrong, when and how
• Structural changes to housing governance; fortified elements of the governance structure- strategic housing oversight board with reports from Housing DMTs
• Overload on housing demand with scale of the housing issue combined with factors such post-covid backlog
• Overreliance on central structures, transformation needed around central structures
• Member services and casework, resident engagement and communication
• All the above-mentioned areas coming together in a one council approach.
• Previously political oversight on housing issues were only raised when residents mobilised and were championed by ward councillors

Cllr Williams explained to the committee that extra attention and governance has now been put in place for housing, which is the number one priority for the council. The scale of housing issues in Southwark makes it a priority for the IT team, HR Team, Call Centre Team, Finance team etc. being a collective task. Customer service and handling complaints is important, but its also crucial to learn from those complaints to make the service better. The council needs to have good engagement structures with residents to show changes made because of issues that were raised.

The committee then heard from Althea that having good engagement structures is important and having governance through oversight boards is key to that process. However, in response to the issues raised at meetings, there needs to be clear objectives for a resolution and working towards that change. Furthermore, its also crucial that we find a balance between focusing on housing related issues and maintaining and improving other core council services.

Cllr Williams informed the committee that the housing regulator inspections have revealed that the biggest social landlords in the country are in a very similar position to Southwark. The challenges in the housing repairs sector are on an enormous scale, however there is strong determination across the country to change this. There are on-going talks with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to setup a network for Directors of Housing like the Children’s and Adults Services network which led to a national revolution in the sector.

The Chair summarised the meeting by expressing that the issues, comments and questions raised at this meeting reflect the resident experiences; and the focus of this committee, senior officers and cabinet members is to improve trust and confidence in the council in the community. There are areas of improvement within the overall council services, however there a lot of achievements to be proud of despite the financial hardships faced.