Venue: Committee Room 3 - Town Hall, Mulberry Place, 5 Clove Crescent, London, E14 2BG. View directions
Contact: The Committee Services Officer
Tel: 020 7364 5554 E-mail: rushena.miah@towerhamlets.gov.uk
Items
No. |
Item |
1. |
DECLARATIONS OF DISCLOSABLE PECUNIARY INTERESTS PDF 68 KB
To note any declarations of
interest made by Members, including those restricting Members from
voting on the questions detailed in Section 106 of the Local
Government Finance Act, 1992. See attached note from the Monitoring
Officer.
Minutes:
Anne Ambrose declared
a personal interest. She is a resident of Tower Hamlets Community
Housing.
Moshin Hamim declared
a personal interest. He is a resident of East End
Homes.
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2. |
MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING(S) PDF 110 KB
To approve as an accurate
record the minutes of the meeting held on 29 January
2019.
Minutes:
RESOLVED:
- The minutes of the meeting
held on 29 January 2019 were approved as an accurate record and
signed by the Chair.
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3. |
REPORTS FOR CONSIDERATION:
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4. |
SHELTERED HOUSING REPORT PDF 206 KB
The report summarises the joint
work being undertaken by the Ageing Well Commissioning Team with
local Registered Providers of sheltered housing schemes. Also
provides an update on the transition to an intensive housing
management model of sheltered housing provision, how this model
compares with that delivered in other boroughs and an update on the
implementation of the Tenant Activity Pot.
Presented by Keith Burns
– Programme Director, Special Projects, LBTH.
18:55-19:15 (20 mins)
Minutes:
The Committee
received the report of Keith Burns, Programme Director, on
sheltered housing. Commissioning Officers, Shehnaz Rab and
Stephanie Graden summarised the
report.
In response to Member questions officers
provided the following:
- It was clarified that
activities were tenant led in order to encourage ownership and
personal development.
- Barriers to participation
included people being employed full time or actively involved in
other community projects. The scheme was said to be building
momentum and early successes with the initial work would be used to
encourage other organisations to participate and enable wider
engagement.
- It was noted that One
Housing, Sanctuary Housing and Southern Housing Group had not
engaged in the IHMS scheme, however officers were confident
monitoring data from the first phase could be used to encourage
participation from providers.
- There were concerns that
27% BME engagement was quite low. Officers expected better
engagement in the future after building momentum.
- It was clarified the
Tenant Activity Pot (TAP) was separate to overall commissioning for
sheltered housing.
- The team was exploring a
digital system to capture TAP activity engagement and satisfaction
information, as the current system is both resource intensive for
both participants and the Council.
- ACTION: Sandra Fawcett to follow up with the three providers:
Southern Housing, One Housing and Sanctuary Housing on reasons for
not participating in the TAP.
- ACTION: Stephanie Graden to provide
data breakdown of attendees at TAP activities by ethnic group and
gender.
RESOLVED:
- To note the report.
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5. |
PREVENTING HOMELESSNESS UPDATE PDF 110 KB
The
report provides an update on the HRA and answers a number of
questions posed by members about the impact of the new legislation
on the Housing Options service.
Presented by Rafiqul Hoque –Head of Housing
Options.
19:15-19:35 (20 mins)
Minutes:
The Committee received
the report of Rafiqul Hoque, Head of Housing Options, and Ellie
Kershaw, Tackling Poverty Programme Manager, on Preventing
Homelessness.
In response to Member
questions officers provided the following:
- The tenancy
sustainment and housing management advice given to households is
tailored to the type of problem being experienced.
- The Council
was unable to produce figures on how many homeless people were
originally from the borough and how many came from outside. The
borough turnover was estimated to be approximately 9000 people a
year, some of whom were likely to require support. It was noted those who have not lived in the
borough for more than three years were in a lower priority
band.
- Cabinet
agreed a five year Homeless and Rough Sleeping Strategy in December
2018.
- Interview
times had gone up because the new legislation required officers to
obtain more detailed information from people and develop a support
plan rather than going through a checklist to find out if they met
the criteria for support.
- Officers
explained that if homelessness became an ASB concern, the police
had powers to issue a Community Protection Notice and Injunction.
In order to tackle ‘intermittent homelessness’, where
people continually go in and out of homelessness, a multi-agency
approach is taken and services such as a street psychologist can be
provided to address contributing factors such as drug
dependency.
- When the
Chair opened up the meeting for comments from the public, there was
strong opposition towards the Council working in partnership with
the private sector to address homelessness.
- The Chair
asked Members to email the speakers if they had further questions
due to time constraints.
RESOLVED:
- To note the
report.
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6. |
UNIVERSAL CREDIT & RENT ARREARS PDF 196 KB
An update on the
implementation of Universal Credit (UC) in Tower Hamlets from Tower
Hamlets Homes, Tower Hamlets Housing Forum and Tower Hamlets
Council.
19:35-20:25 (50 mins)
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Committee received a presentation from Beverley Greenidge,
Head of Neighbourhoods-Tower Hamlets Homes, on Universal
Credit.
In
response to Member questions the following points were
made:
-
Support officers were available to provide advice on
maximising benefits or Universal Credit.
-
It was noted that the Universal Credit online
application was complicated and not user friendly to older people
and people who did not speak English as a first
language.
-
There was a Digital Inclusion work stream at THH
that was designed to support and enable older people to fill in the
online form. However it was recognised that capacity was an issue
and THH would require the support of external agencies such as the
Job Centre to also support people with IT.
-
ACTION: for Beverley Greenidge to
circulate figures on the actual number of households in rent
arrears.
The Committee received a presentation from Sandra Fawcett Chair
of Tower Hamlets Housing Forum on Universal Credit.
In response to Member questions the following points
were made:
-
Alternative payment arrangements varied depending on
the landlord. With regard to discretionary housing payments such as
bedroom tax, RPs usually looked to rehouse or pay the shortfall via
an alternative arrangement.
-
Officers from Tower Hamlets Community Housing (THCH)
had established the following support services regarding universal
credit:
-
They had recruited a tenancy officer to assist
people to make Universal Credit and DHP claims.
-
Worked in partnership with Workpath to deliver advice surgeries.
-
Project Leap with the Bromley by Bow Centre. The
projects helped people maximise their income to help pay their
rent.
-
7 community centres to help people get job ready,
last year they supported over 1000 people with work advice, though
not all were THCH residents.
-
There were no plans to cut services due to UC. The
main objective for RPs was to mitigate and minimise risk, support
residents and collect rent.
-
It was noted there would be a vote in parliament
before the roll out of UC and this would likely take place after
July 2019.
-
ACTION: Ellie Kershaw to provide the
Committee with data on evictions.
-
The Committee were assured that residents would not
be evicted purely because they had made a UC claim.
-
The Chair asked members to email further questions
to Sandra Fawcett.
The Committee received the report of Steve Hill – Head of
Benefits and Ellie Kershaw –Tackling Poverty Project
Manager.
In
response to Member questions officers provided the
following:
-
The Council had created a digital mock-up of the
universal credit form to train staff so they could better
understand the form and advise people
applying for UC.
-
Pre-emptive measures - a dashboard was implemented
to find people at risk or in crisis.
-
The Council had employed a DWP liaison officer who
was assisting with complex cases. The officer had participated at a
Parliamentary Sub-Committee on impact of UC.
-
The Committee recommended that a UC easy guide
should be created.
ACTION: Steve Hill to work with the TH
communications team to produce an easy read UC guide for
residents.
The ...
view the full minutes text for item 6.
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7. |
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
THH Strategic Review
– Chair, Cllr Dipa Das.
Housing Open Spaces Scrutiny Review –
Abidah Kamali (TH Council)
Items for next HSSC meeting - Abidah Kamali
(TH Council)
20:25-20:30 (5 mins)
Minutes:
Tower Hamlets Homes Strategic Review
In order to fulfil their remit
of effective and meaningful scrutiny, Members of the Committee
agreed that it was crucial they had opportunity to review the
Altair report prior to it being made available in the public
domain. Members requested that the
report is made available to HSSC members at least a week before its
circulation to THH residents.
Members understood the
sensitivities of the draft report which contained the business and
financial affairs of the local authority. Therefore, HSSC members
advised they were happy to review and discuss the report in an
exempt setting through a special and confidential meeting
comprising of HSSC members, to which the public would not be
invited.
The Committee agreed that
whilst they would participate in the statutory consultation,
however, considering THH managed a significant amount of housing
stock in the borough and given the Committee’s function, it
was imperative that members of the housing scrutiny subcommittee
had the opportunity to provide input into any proposals well in
advance of a statutory consultation and before any options were
communicated to THH residents. This request was in addition to the
scrutiny and call in processes by Overview and Scrutiny.
ACTION:
The Cabinet Member for Housing and Divisional
Director for Housing and Regeneration agreed to discuss the
Committee’s request and timetabling of this with the Mayor,
responding back to the Chair.
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