Agenda and minutes

The Chair started the meeting apologising that due to work commitments she was abroad and had to attend the meeting remotely. As she was not there in person, she would hand over to the Vice Chair to Chair the rest of the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Laureline Champion, Philip Dunne, Carolyn Morgan and Thomas Watkins.

The Vice Chair took over chairing of the meeting, informing the Forum that there would be a departure from the normal practice of non-Forum members participating in the meeting by writing in the Microsoft Teams chat as the teams’ chat had been disabled. Non-Forum members who had questions or comments had been asked to send these via email to (leaseholdersforum@gmail.com), during the meeting, if they had any comments on an item being discussed he would be monitoring these emails on his phone.

He also asked that those presenting items on the agenda highlight the main points spending no more than 5 minutes, rather than read the documents line by line, to allow more time for discussion.

There were none.

To consider and approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 30 May 2023.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meeting of 30th May 2023 and the actions arising from those minutes.

RESOLVED –

THAT the minutes of the meeting held on 30th May 2023 be approved as an accurate record.

To receive a progress report on actions from previous meetings.

Matters Arising from the minutes 30^th May 2023

The Organisation Chart

The organisational chart for Leaseholder Services had been included in the agenda, it was however in very small font and difficult to read. The Vice Chair indicated that as a solution it would be uploaded on to the Camden Leaseholders’ Forum site where it could be expanded and viewed more legibly.

Communicating Leaseholder Service changes to those without access to the internet.

The Head of Leaseholder Services informed the Forum that the service made sure that any communication emanating from the service was done in a variety of forms and where there were specific requests from people or preferences about communication styles that would be considered, for example if there was a request for written communication or large font the service would make sure that happened. The service would also be developing a communications plan to notify people of any services changes in a variety of forms including providing information in publications circulated to Leaseholders.

Issues relating to slippery pathway at 13, 15 & 19 Parsifal Road

This was deemed to go against article 4.12 of the Forum’s Code of Conduct which said that members of the Forum must not use their membership as a way of achieving preferential treatment for themselves. The Forum was reminded that there were other avenues to address individual cases such as through the local ward Councillor, through the Council’s complaints procedure or bringing it up with a working group. The Forum member concerned was asked to take the issue up outside of the meeting with the officer.

Liferay – responsibility for storing Camden Leaseholders information on the Camden Account

A Forum member indicated that he was not satisfied with the previous response Camden’s IT Department had provided to his question about what Leaseholders information Camden shared with Liferay. Camden had indicated that the Council does not share Camden Account users details with any other organisation. The Forum member indicated he was not satisfied with this answer and wanted a clear explanation. The Forum member was advised to either raise a freedom of information request or go through a complaints procedure.

To receive an update from the Head of Leaseholder Services.

Consideration was given to the Head of Leaseholder Services verbal update and the briefing note on leaseholders’ heating and management charges.

Sean Scott (Head of Leaseholder Services and Housing Income) introduced himself to the Forum informing the meeting that he had joined the organisation at the end of July 2023. He stated that although he was relatively new to the organisation and still finding his feet, he was very experienced having worked across a number of organisations in the Housing sector and Leasehold for a long time. He was well versed in leaseholder issues and the things that impacted leaseholder on a daily basis with the things the service did, also learning every day the issues peculiar to Camden.

He informed the Forum that he saw his role as being the conduit of leaseholders’ views and trying to make sure that the organisation took these views into account when decisions were being made and services were being provided. So that when things were being done, even if it did not necessarily make everybody happy, reasons for decisions were transparent and understood. He also reminded the Forum that his role was a bit different from the previous post holders in that he was responsible for 3 services areas including Housing Income, the service area was going through a period of change and he was looking at what the Department’s structure would look like.

The number of Heads of Service in Housing had been reduced from 8 to 5 as part of the wider Housing transformation programme. The aim being to streamline and make the operating model more efficient. To get people with the right specialist skills and roles covering these areas and the needs of the organisation.

With regards to the Leaseholders Heating and Management Charges paper, he advised that the Council was working with LASER and through the Energy Bill relief Scheme to try to minimise the impact of the cost of heating and fuel on leaseholders and tenants as much as possible. The Council had put things in place as well as conducting a heating review so that where estimates for this were identified as being lower than original estimates, people could make some variations to their payments and in cases where there was a large variance, in some cases giving people additional time and some other options to make it as easy as possible and to minimise the impact.

Responding to Forum members’ questions the Head of Leaseholder Services and Housing Income provided the following comments.

·       The Finance Income Manager would continue to hold the surgeries for leaseholder queries.

·       With regards to questions that came up from on-line participants during Leaseholder Forum meetings, there was no guarantee that these could be responded to during the meeting. However, responses would be provided to questions raised within a reasonable amount of time after the meeting by the Finance Income Manager and her team.

·       The Housing Department was reviewing every aspect of its service, the department had a housing transformation programme  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

To receive updates from the following Working-Groups:

·       Leaseholder Services Working Group Update - Billy Byatt

·       Repairs Working Group Update – David Hart

Consideration was given to the update from the following Working Groups.

Leaseholder Services Working Group

Billy Byatt informed the meeting that the new Head of Leaseholder Services and Housing Income was very proactive and had already engaged with the working group. He hoped that as the Head of Leaseholder Services and Housing Income had mentioned there would continue to be engagement with the forum while the review of the service was being conducted.

The Forum was provided with an update of some of the working group’s activities which included:

·       Working with Simon Rathborne (Strategic Lead) to include Leaseholders questions as part of Camden’s Star Survey so that Camden’s Leaseholder Service could be benchmarked against other borough’s leaseholder services and other areas. In the next Camden Star Survey there should be Leaseholder specific questions.

·       Working to support the service in pursuing a standardised customer relationship management system. In the interim, the section had been encouraged to track more closely contact which had come in from leaseholders, from receipt through to completion/closing of the query.

·       Encouraged Camden to have monitoring systems so that data from the different systems was available to Heads of Service which could be utilised to monitor, measure performance and act upon it.

·       Working with the service for better communication and transparency, so that instead of a sudden red demand letter, there would be a series of notifications which would provide prior notice of what was in the pipeline. This would encourage collaboration and liaison.

·       Encouraging Camden to provide more details on its planned programme of works on the Camden Account, so Leaseholders could see what works were planned on estates or properties in the future.

Repairs Working Group

David Hart informed the meeting that this was the third report from this working group. He noted that the same key issues which had been highlighted from the beginning on page 35 of the agenda were still cropping up and there had not appeared to be any significant sign of improvement. He hoped however that with all the restructuring of the teams involved in repairs that things would start to head in the right direction.

The Forum was informed that inadequate communication relating to contractors missed appointments was a key issue reported in the Customer Surveys in 2019 and 2020 and these issues were still being flagged up.

Contractors were not communicating with leaseholders and residents to let them know that they would not be turning up for appointments. He highlighted that there was no compensation payable under the contracts neither was there an effective tracking system for repairs once an order number had been logged into the system. Once the order number had been logged it was difficult to know where it had got to and when the job was allocated.

These were the areas the Repairs Working Group was focusing on, noting that there was an opportunity while the current consultation on the procurement of a term service contract was going on to have some input. The Working  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Patrick Hagopian and David Hart

David Hart (Communications Member) gave an update to the Forum on the Energy Group report and regulatory framework.

He informed the meeting that he had raised a Freedom of Information (FOI) request regarding his building to find out the information the Council had submitted as required to the government to find out why his building was in the exempt class which meant that it did not qualify for Heat meter installation.

He said that he did not get much useful information back except that the Council had submitted information before November 2020 when the regulations changed. The new regulations required a much more detailed analysis of the systems and the networks that the Council had and why a particular network or building was not appropriate for heat metering. The regulations required organisations to resubmit evidence every 4 years. It appeared that Camden had until February 2024 to resubmit the updated information. The Energy Group had spoken to the Council about this and it was hoped that the information would be provided by the deadline.

The Vice Chair referred the Forum to the minutes of the Heat Meters meeting that took place on 26^th June 2023 between some members of the Leaseholders Forum, Camden Officers and the Cabinet Member for Better Homes pages 37-40 of the agenda.

He highlighted that a major concern that came out of that meeting was the backlog for heat meter activations. Other questions and concerns related to communicating to residents’ decisions about exempting buildings from heat meter installation and reasons for these decisions. Making these decisions transparent and accessible and whether they could be challenged. He explained that although officers agreed to provide a response to these questions there had not been a time agreed for a response or follow up meeting. Unfortunately he had not received a response to these requests despite emailing officers.

Other questions the Forum would like a response to were:

·       What was the average percentage drop in energy use?

·       How were costs going to be apportioned both to the metered and unmetered residents?

The Head of Capital Works informed the Forum that she had discussed this with her team which had delivered heat meters into properties and worked closely with the billing team. She noted that the Council had shared the data regarding which properties were in the heat metering programme based on government guidance and the Council’s evaluation tool which all local authorities used.

The Head of Capital Works agreed to follow up the queries raised with members of the energy group team as well as the requirement to resubmit the Council’s updated information by the deadline of February 2024. She noted that it was also worthwhile to have another catch up meeting to discuss this in a bit more detail.

ACTION BY: Head of Capital Works/Vice Chair Leaseholders’ Forum

To receive an update from the Cabinet Adviser on improving services to Camden Leaseholders.

Councillor James Slater (Cabinet Adviser on Improving Services to Camden Leaseholders) provided the Forum with an outline of his remit in this role.

He had already met with the Leaseholders Forum Chair and Vice Chair as highlighted in the meeting notes on pages 41-43 of the agenda.

He was appointed as one of 4 Cabinet Advisers for this calendar year to take a deep dive into a specific area of the Council and find out what the issues were. His brief was to look at improving services for Camden leaseholders and advocating for leaseholders. One side of which involved looking at leaseholders that lived in Camden housing stock and the other side involved advocating for Leaseholders generally. Noting that with the ongoing housing restructure and transformation programme within the Council as well as national discussions around leaseholder reform more generally this appeared to be an opportune time to do a deep dive into leaseholder services. He also noted that a common thread that kept on coming up repeatedly even at this meeting was a lack of communication.

He explained that his intention was to find out what the issues were, by speaking to people, doing some research and then come up with a report at the end of the year and then present recommendations of what could be done better which would go forward to the Council’s Cabinet and they would look at what should be adopted.

He informed the Forum that he was currently at the research stage, engaging with different groups, collaborating with officers to determine how he could communicate and survey leaseholders across the borough. He would then start drafting the report over the winter, which would then go on to the Housing Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet at the start of the next year in the spring. He advised that he was not the decision maker for housing, that was the role of the Cabinet Member for Better Homes, he could not help with individual casework unless it related to his ward Kentish Town North. For case work leaseholders should contact their ward councillors.

Responding to Leaseholders’ questions, Councillor Slater provided the following information:

·       With regards to the most common issue faced, the Leaseholder Services team had been very open to the idea of improving communications and the opportunity had been taken to use an external partner to test service provision. Interesting discussions had taken place with the Leaseholder Services Management team on how communication could be improved.

·       Communication was still the common issue, people appeared to get more frustrated with the Council because communication was not always right. He was of the view that some of it was because of the legal framework and the way things had to be explained in a certain way such as certain bills and service charges. However, it was the Council’s job to make it easier to communicate.

·       With regards to trying to get through to the Council on the phone, with nobody picking up the phone, which was more  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

Update from David Hart and Patrick Hagopian.

The Vice Chair informed the meeting that this item related to a consultation document on the major works contract. The document had not been included in the agenda but all leaseholders should have received it.

He commented that it was one of a number of contracts that had all been signed but the contractor had withdrawn from this particular contract. The issue of missed appointments had continuously come up, so at a zoom meeting in preparation for the Leaseholder Forum meeting a suggestion had been made that it should be suggested to the Council that on retendering the contract to insert a clause penalising contractors’ for missed appointments or cancellations within 24 hours before the appointment.

The Vice Chair was of the view that the Council had inaccurate data regarding the number of missed contractor appointments indicating that these were vastly under reported. Some leaseholders were of the view that if there was no penalty this would keep on happening and that there needed to be an incentive for the contractor to take their responsibility more seriously. The view was that if it was workable for utility companies that paid penalties for missed appointments why could it not be workable for local authorities and their contractors.

After further discussion from Forum members about the need to have independent data on missed appointments, key performance indicators and the need for residents signing to confirm completion of the work, the Vice Chair proposed a motion which was seconded by the Communications member that,

a recommendation be made to the Council that:

·       Camden Leaseholders Forum recommends that Camden include a mechanism in its contracts which incentivises the contractor to take seriously its appointments management.

·       The Forum asks that Camden contracts require a contractor to pay a penalty if it does not attend an appointment with the resident, or if it cancels the appointment with less than 24 hours’ notice.

·      
The Forum regards it as equitable for a resident who has attended an appointment to be compensated if the contractor does not attend or cancels with less than 24 hours’ notice."

A Forum member suggested that this should be included among the survey questions that would go out to Leaseholders and tenants as part of the Housing Star Survey later in the year.

The Head of Capital Works commenting on the suggestion about including these as part of the star survey agreed to take this away and ask the team working on the key survey questions whether these could be included as part of the questions.

ACTION BY: Head of Capital Works

With regards to the Forum’s recommendation for a penalty for the contractor and compensation for the resident for upcoming contracts being tendered or in a procurement process, this would need to be run past the Council’s procurement and legal teams for advice. It was agreed that this would be taken away to seek advice from the respective teams.

ACTION BY: Head of Capital Works

Another Forum member suggested adding a further clause  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

What measures is Camden taking to identify RAAC concrete in Camden residential properties and form mitigation or remediation plans?

With regards to the question raised about RAAC by the Vice Chair. (What measures is Camden taking to identify RAAC concrete in Camden residential properties and form mitigation or remediation plans?)

Paul McHugh, Programmes Manager had provided the following written response:

“The presence of RAAC is not widely known to have been used in residential housing stock, however as a matter of precaution we were reviewing the council wide premises including housing, corporate, leisure centres and commercial properties, this process had just begun so there wasn’t anything further that could be shared with the leaseholder forum at this juncture.”

See also https://news.camden.gov.uk/camden-statement-on-reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac/

Camden statement on Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) (6 September 2023), by Councillor Marcus Boyland, Cabinet Member for Best Start for Children and Families at Camden Council, on Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC). The statement concentrates on schools. 

Noel Curran Responsive Repairs Operations Lead advised that the Council had mobilised teams to go around to inspect Estate blocks in areas that were suspected of having RAAC. There was nothing further to add to this at present.

The Forum noted the response.

There was none.

The next meeting of the Leaseholder Forum is scheduled for 13^th December 2023 at 7.00pm in Committee room 1 Town Hall Judd Street.

Date of next meeting Wednesday 13^th December at 7.00pm in Committee room 1 Camden Town Hall.