Agenda item

Report of the Head of Tenant Participation and Sheltered Housing.

Each DMC is asked to:

1.     Consider and comment on the analysis of the Resident Participation Strategy Survey.

2.     Consider the Annual Report to Residents and agree on areas, which might deserve further examination via a pilot scrutiny process.

3.     Nominate members to participate in a pilot scrutiny process.

4.     Agree to consider draft service standards during the March 2019 DMC round.

This report will be considered at the special DMC meeting on Wednesday 28 November at 7pm in Committee Room 1, Crowndale Centre.

Consideration was given to the report of the Head of Tenant Participation and Sheltered Housing.

The Chair noted the DMC’s special meeting the week previously, drew the DMC’s attention to the notes from the meeting in the tabled papers and outlined the key points arising as follows:

-       Ensuring that the Tenant Participation team were empowered to take action and be pro-active;

-       Looking at using an arbiter who was independent of Tenant Participation to deal with conflict resolution, to avoid Tenant Participation, who had to support all tenants, being put into conflict of interest type situations and using up large swathes of their time;

-       Improving accountability and transparency in the service. The figures in the survey and housing annual report were not clear on how and where improvement had occurred;

-       Providing greater clarity on the Tenant Participation budget and how it was spent;

-       Having a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach to Tenant Participation; and

-       Improving how residents were able to feed into the resident participation strategy on an ongoing basis.

The DMC praised the work of Tenant Participation officers over a number of years.

Reda Khelladi, Tenant Participation Co-ordinator, commented that the aim was to have the strategy ready to present to March DMCs, building on the surveys and discussions already held. It was acknowledged that more residents wanted to be more involved and a menu of options for residents in terms of engagement was being developed. Greater involvement of younger people and those of black and minority ethnic backgrounds was also needed and officers were working on this as part of the strategy. More consultation would be undertaken in January 2019. It was agreed that the reports could be improved through including data from previous years for comparison.

DMC members noted that conversations over resident participation needed to be ongoing. Liaising with DMCs and TRAs was welcome but better engagement with street properties was needed, as many residents in street properties had little awareness of their options for getting involved.

Websites for TRAs were mooted as one option to improve engagement, and officers outlined potential support to help set up websites through an arrangement made with schools’ IT.

The Chair then drew the DMC’s attention to the motion that had been laid round regarding the Camden Food Box scheme. She outlined the purpose of the scheme and the work put in by a number of volunteers to establish a scheme providing food and other household essentials as well as advice and support that while not as open as allowing people access to the scheme coming in off the street, was not as restrictive as the Food Bank scheme. The DMC was advised that just prior to the launch of the scheme there had been an intervention to prevent the launch and the motion deplored this and sought an investigation on why it had happened.

Komal Doan, Senior Tenant Participation Officer, outlined how the scheme had come about and how the key part of the scheme was to provide or signpost to advice so that people did not need immediate food provision on an ongoing basis. The Tenant Participation Co-ordinator outlined that the issue for the launch was securing appropriate premises from which to be based. The large number of residents supporting the scheme was noted and officers were keen to see it progress – with the support of the DMCs – despite the setback.

DMC members commented that it was important to recognise the time given by volunteers for such a scheme by being transparent over why it had been prevented from launching when planned. A review would also provide learning points for future projects.

On being put to the vote it was, with 8 votes in favour, none against and 2 abstentions:

RESOLVED –

THAT the DMC pass the following motion:

“This DMC deplores the cancellation of the launch of the vitally needed Camden Food Box scheme on Tuesday, 27^th November at the Crowndale Centre. This project attracted support from corporate sponsors set to donate a sizeable cheque to support its charitable aims of supplying not only healthy nutritious food and necessary supplies to vulnerable and needy families but also providing or signposting them to range of support services as part of a package targeting those in most need. 

Individual volunteers who have worked hard to set up and support this project on a purely voluntary basis are devastated it is not now live as planned.  Instead it has been pulled at the eleventh hour just as their efforts were about to come to fruition and everything was in place to provide for the needy in the very near future. Rather than bringing joy and warmth during the cold harsh winter months, vulnerable, poverty-stricken families will be deprived of food, supplies and support that would otherwise have been provided to them via the Food Box project. 

This DMC seeks a full enquiry into the astonishing decision made by LBC to cancel the launch of such a worthy project just days before it was to have gone live delivering a range of benefits to families in extreme poverty needing continual help and support, but no more than ever during the dark cold winter months. This heartless decision means that the needs of many families in dire need will not benefit as planned with the launch of the project being kicked down the road until some vague amorphous future date. Without a very credible explanation as to the delay, this decision is indefensible.”