Decision details

1.         That the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development agreed that funding and support for Westminster Resident’s Panel in its current configuration be withdrawn, but the Council offers the Panel free meeting rooms if they wish to continue to operate.

2.         That the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development agreed that the Council continues to engage with the Westminster Residents Panel if they continue to operate and continue to have a sizeable membership, through one to two annual meetings, which will be attended by senior officers and elected members as appropriate.

3.         That the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development agreed that should the Westminster Residents Panel no longer continue to operate, then one to two annual meetings are pro-actively organised and invitations extended to social housing residents within the City and these will be attended by senior officers and elected members as appropriate.

4.         That the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development noted that the purpose of these meetings referred to in 2 and 3 above is to engage with a wide pool of social housing residents across Westminster and hear their views on a range of cross tenure housing issues including strategic issues; and that the overall aim of the meetings is for residents to feed into the development of housing and related strategies, it is not to scrutinise the performance of individual social landlords.  

5.         That the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development agreed that the success of these meetings referred to in 2 and 3 above be reviewed periodically and that authority be delegated to the Director of Housing and Regeneration to make any necessary changes to them.

Reasons for Decision 

It is considered that rather than supporting an independent panel, the Council could meet its objectives of engaging with social housing residents, as set out in the Housing Strategy Direction of Travel Statement 2015, in a similar and more cost effective way.