Agenda and minutes

To consider any apologies for absence

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Richard Cotton, Eddie Hanson and Samata Khatoon and Charles Bertlin and Larissa Hope, Co-opted Members.

There were none.

Broadcast of the meeting

The Chair to announce the following: ‘In addition to the rights by law that the public and press have to record this meeting, I would like to remind everyone that this meeting is being broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and can be viewed on our website for twelve months after the meeting. After that time, webcasts are archived and can be made available upon request.

If you have asked to address the meeting, you are deemed to be consenting to having your contributions recorded and broadcast, including video when switched on, and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.’

Any other announcements

Broadcast of the meeting

The Chair announced that the meeting was being broadcast live by the Council to the Internet and could be viewed on the website for twelve months after the meeting. After that time, webcasts were archived and could be made available upon request. Those who had asked to address the meeting were deemed to be consenting to having their contributions recorded and broadcast and to the use of those sound recordings and images for webcasting and/or training purposes.

There were none.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th November 2024

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th November 2024.

RESOLVED –

THAT the minutes of the meeting held on 12^th November 2024 be approved and signed as a correct record.

Requests to speak at the Committee on a matter within its terms of reference must be made in writing to the clerk named on the front of this agenda by 5pm two working days before the meeting.

There were none.

Report of the Director of Finance

This report provides an update on the HRA ahead of the January Rent and Budget Setting Cabinet report

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Finance

Emma Cardoso, Strategic Finance Lead Housing, took the meeting through the report and key proposals. She advised the meeting that the 5% service charge increase for Communal M&E Maintenance was based on an assessment of expected inflation for 2025/26. This was reviewed annually and would be revised accordingly for the following years’ service charge proposals if necessary. Officers would seek to ensure that the report for the January Cabinet and Housing Scrutiny Committee regarding the HRA budgetary proposals would provide a context for the proposed increases at January DMCs, and seek to explain more about what services were being provided for the charges.

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted

Report of the Cabinet Member for Better Homes

This report provides an overview of the Full Council themed debate on 14^th October 2024.

The report summarises the key points made by the 5 speakers, and subsequent debate at Full Council. The report highlights the next steps from the discussion and implementing recommendations of the Council’s next steps with the private rented sector

Consideration was given to the report of the Cabinet Member for Better Homes.

Darren Wilsher, Private Sector Housing Service Manager, took the meeting through the report and he advised the meeting that officers were aware of the issues facing tenants in Houses of Multiple Occupation, where some of the homes were being used as short-term lets. Officers in his service were working with colleagues in the Planning Department, who were responsible for undertaking enforcement action, to monitor this issue and take appropriate action when necessary. Officers would be working closely with the Camden Federation of Private Sector Tenants, regarding the sharing of information and providing support and advice to private sector tenants through appropriate systems.

RESOLVED –

THAT the report be noted

Report of the Executive Directors of Adults and Health, Children and Learning, Supporting Communities and Corporate Services

This report focusses on the second quarter of the year (Q2) 2024/25 using a broad range of measures from each directorate and division across the organisation. In this report, Camden Directors have been asked to provide a narrative covering key areas of challenge, opportunity, and learning.  

This report is divided into two main sections:

·       A summary which highlights key responses from directorates and highlights particular cross-cutting themes;  

·       A detailed summary of individual service responses for Q2 2024/25 across each of our three Directorates. 

Appendix A contains the data dashboard

Consideration was given to the report of the Executive Directors.

Gavin Haynes, Director of Property Management and Glendine Shepherd, Director of Housing, took the meeting through the report and gave the following key responses to questions:

·       The Council had reduced the use of commercial hotels by half and also reduced the expenditure on commercial hotels as well, in relation to placing people who had need of temporary accommodation. As part of this process officers had sought to use alternative hotels instead of the big commercial chains, along with using private sector landlords as they were less expensive to use. Also an officer task force had been set up to try and prevent people from becoming homeless. The task forces would also be involved in the brining on board hostels, purchasing properties, and building new hostels all of which would be  to be used to house people in need of temporary accommodation.

·       The Council had already started a transformation programme in relation to its housing services that sort to improve the quality of its service delivery, and therefore the service received by its tenants and residents. As part of the programme a restructuring of housing services had been completed and would be effective from January 2025. The expectation was that housing services would now be more empathetic, and would better meet the needs of the tenants and residents living in the Council’s homes. Housing services would also be better at avoiding and repeating similar mistakes, along with learning lessons from issues that arose.

·       The Council saw the Housing Ombudsman report findings as an opportunity to improve its housing services. A report would be submitted to the scrutiny committee in the new year that would contain an action plan that sought to address the issues raised by the Housing Ombudsman. This action plan would be discussed with the Housing Ombudsman in January before it could be made available for consideration by the scrutiny committee, to ensure that the approach proposed was on the right track.

·       The Council’s Asset Management Strategy would be submitted for consideration to the scrutiny committee at its January 2025 meeting. This report would highlight the challenging nature of some of the Council’s housing stock and the proposed approach in seeking to meet that challenge. New requirements e.g. damp and mould, and fire safety had impacted on the Council’s capital programme and the Council’s ability to undertake normal works to improve its housing stock in a planned way.

·       Further information regarding how AI could be used to improve collaboration across the Council to improve housing services would be provided at a future meeting of the scrutiny committee.

·       New approaches had been put in place to help improve rent arrears. This included the use of IT software (Rentsense) to provide information to officers that would highlight to them rent accounts that showed rent as being owed, prioritise the information, enabled standardized and systematic approaches to be followed. This would then enable the officer to contact the tenant  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

Report of the Cabinet Member Better Homes

This report recommends developing a prototype Retrofit Test Model targeting a relatively small sample of circa 3,000 of the Council’s homes.

The model will test and develop principles as part of a prototype to reduce carbon emissions at scale across our housing stock while providing lower energy costs for residents. The proposed approach is the first of its kind at any significant scale. It is required as London Councils estimate that current grant-funded retrofit schemes will only reach between 2% and 3% of homes in the capital. The project aligns with work by Government to improve energy security with support from institutional investment, and reduce reliance on fossil fuels for energy generation.

The model will test a phased approach to retrofit. It will see the installation of solar panels and battery storage to around 3,000 Council’s homes (9% of the overall stock). Should it be successful it will lay the foundation for further retrofit work to the initial sample of 3,000 homes – for example heat pump installation or fabric measures.

More significantly, principles developed for and by the Retrofit Test Model could subsequently be used to develop another more extensive model which could be rolled out more widely across the Council’s housing stock.

Under the proposed approach, the intention is that the supplier will be an institutional investor who will part fund the works. The energy generated means that residents receive lower bills and part of the saving is used to pay back the investment. The resident receives a single bill which captures all this, which is generated by a billing platform unique to the project. The prototype, including the capital works required, will be delivered through a special purpose vehicle.

The properties that will be added to the pilot are those with poorer energy ratings and where residents will benefit from the energy provided by the panels and battery storage. This will form an important part of the Council’s work to make sure all homes achieve a Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of band “C” or above.

Because the Retrofit Test Model is the first of its kind to be mobilised at this scale, based on pre market engagment there is likely to be only one supplier who has the resources, capacity and capability to collaborate with the Council and develop the detailed financial and legal structure to deliver the requirements of the Council’s prototype and the positive outcomes sought for residents; namely Legal & General (L&G) and their technical partners Sero who will provide the billing platform.

As explored in the report, expert legal advice has been obtained, and the proposed approach is to publish a transparency notice, which may lead to a subsequent decision to make a direct award of a contract to operate the Retrofit Test Model.

The report is coming to the Cabinet because the ultimate gross value of the contract over 30 years is estimated as being £68.2m.

Part II: Exempt from Publication

This report has  ...  view the full agenda text for item 10.

Consideration was given to the report of the Cabinet Member for Better Homes.

Gavin Haynes, Director of Property Management, took the meeting through the report and he along with Sim Dhinsa, Programme Manager (Retrofit),   gave the following key responses to questions:

·       The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to be established to run the proposed Retrofit Test Model would also be responsible for the delivery of the capital works element of the scheme. The SPV would be managing the skilled contractors who would install the solar panels and the battery storage units for the 3,000 Council Homes included in the proposal. The approach being followed would allow the authority to move the scheme forward at a rate it was comfortable with, so that lessons and system developments could be learnt from as the scheme progressed.

·       The Council was engaged with building skills for the future and for this particular contract there would be a social value requirement, so there would be an opportunity for the Euston Skills Centre to place people within the work to be undertaken. At any one time the in-house repairs team had 14 apprentices placed with them to help support building skills for the future.

·       The Council was discussing the proposed SPV with Pension Funds, to see if they would be interested in investing into this type of initiative. The scheme would have a risk-sharing aspect, and would allow the Council to understand the type of risk it could manage and the risk that would be easier to share.

·       The model provided for the landlord and the investor to fund the work, as the costs were being shared the Council would be getting the works done at a lower cost and allow for the homes to achieve SAP band C or above. The investor would obtain an element of the savings achieved. Here the energy generated by the solar panels would be shared with tenants (leading to a cheaper energy bill) and sold back to the energy grid operator. Part of this profit would then be given to the investor (comfort pricing) as a way of paying back the investment.

·       The aim would be to target homes with a low Energy Performance Certificate rating, people suffering from fuel poverty, low and medium rise properties depending on the orientation, angle of the roof, internal structure and whether it would be impacted by shading. The scheme would not be suitable for high rise buildings as the ratio of roof to the number of tenants would not work financially.

·       The Council would be undertaking an engagement programme with tenants and residents as part of this initiative. This would involve giving tenants and residents a clear explanation of the scheme, so that they would understand the benefits of taking part. Initial research in this type of measure had shown that tenants and residents would be interested in being part of this type of scheme.

·       The Council’s main relationship with the SPV would be through the Energy Services Agreement. This contract would help  ...  view the full minutes text for item 10.

Report of the Director of Property Management

This report suggests a possible work programme for the scrutiny committee

Consideration was given to the report of the Director of Property Management.

The scrutiny committee recognised the seriousness of the special investigation report from the Housing Ombudsman regarding the Council’s landlord services, and following officer advice, it was made aware that the proposed action plan to meet the recommendations outlined by the Housing Ombudsman would not be available until the February meeting of the scrutiny committee. This was to allow officers to discuss the proposed action plan with the Housing Ombudsman, and this would be taking place in January. As a result of this the scrutiny committee asked for a report to the February meeting that would cover the issues raised by the Housing Ombudsman, the Council’s action plan to meet the recommendations, along with KPIs regarding how the Council would be judged on the issues raised. The meeting also wanted added to its work programme for 25/26 an update report so this issue could be monitored by them going forward. The scrutiny committee also asked officers to consider whether they could be given an update prior to the papers for the February agenda being made available if that were possible.

ACTION BY: Director of Property Management

The scrutiny committee noted that the following changes to the work programme, along with the further information required regarding items:

·      Housing Ombudsman report on the Council (February 2025)

·      Cabinet Member report for January would not be required for that meeting, with the focus on leaseholder services being included in the annual report going to the February meeting

·       Domestic Abuse Policy update report (January 2025 if possible)

·       Housing Ombudsman report update on progress (to a future meeting)

·       Use of AI to improve collaboration across the Council and improve Housing Services (to a future meeting)

Programme of meetings 2024/25 (new items and information requests in bold)

13^th January 2025

·       Asset Management Strategy (Cabinet Report)

·       Renewal of the Council's Additional Houses in Multiple Occupation Licensing Scheme (Cabinet Report)

·       HRA Budget & Rent Review 24/25 (Cabinet Report)

·       Allocations Policy Report      

·       Domestic Abuse Report Update

·       Work Programme

25^th February

·       Housing Associations Annual Performance Report

·       Housing Ombudsman report

·       Cabinet Member Better Homes Annual Report

·      CIP annual report

·       Draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (Cabinet Member report)

·       Work programme

Yet to be programmed

·      TSM Housing Regulator update

·       Housing Ombudsman report update during 25/26

·       AI – Improving Housing Services

RESOLVED –

THAT the report work programme be revised as outlined above.

There were none.