Agenda and minutes

The Head of Legal and Democratic Services to report any changes to the membership.

1.1       It was noted that Councillor Vincenzo Rampulla and Councillor Adam Hug had permanently replaced Councillor Paul Dimoldenberg and Councillor Guthrie McKie on the membership.

To receive declarations by Members and Officers of the existence and nature of any personal or prejudicial interests in matters on this agenda.

2.1       Councillors Holloway and Rampulla declared a standing interest in that they are board members of CityWest Homes.

2.2       Councillor Connell declared that he is an employee of KPMG who are the Council's auditors.

2.3       ACTION: That a standing declaration of interests list be produced and included in the agenda for each meeting to avoid regular declarations needing to be declared each time. (Action for Reuben Segal, Committee & Governance Services)

To sign the minutes of the previous meeting as a correct record of proceedings.

3.1     RESOLVED: That the minutes of the meeting held on 27 April 2015 be signed by the Chairman as a correct record of proceedings.

4.1       An outstanding response relating to Hallfield Major Works was tabled.

4.2       RESOLVED:

1.    That the Work Programme for 2015-16 be agreed

2.    That the responses to actions and recommendations as set out in the tracker be noted.

An update from the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development on key areas within the portfolio is attached.

5.1       The Committee received a written update from the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Services on key areas of the portfolio. The Committee asked for details of the role of the Council's monitoring officer as well as the appropriate timelines for it to engage in the Council's medium term planning exercise to identify potential savings of the next three years to 2018/19.

5.1.1    In response to the issue of medium term planning and the budget process the City Treasurer advised that scrutiny of this was undertaken by the Committee’s Budget and Performance standing task group which meets annually in January.

5.1.2   Jane West, interim Bi-borough Director for Corporate Services, explained that the Council’s Monitoring Officer is a statutory role with the following responsibilities: (1) To report on matters he/she believes are, or are likely to be, illegal or amount to maladministration; (2) To be responsible for Matters relating to the conduct of Councillors and Officers; and (3)To be responsible for the operation of the Council's Constitution.  While the role is currently performed by the Head of Legal and Democratic Services there is no requirement for this and it could be undertaken by another senior officer. Tasnim Shawkat was appointed to the post of Tri-borough Director of Law replacing Peter Large who will retire on 17^th August.  She is the Monitoring Officer for Hammersmith and Fulham and while she could undertake the role for all 3 boroughs there are several options for the future Monitoring Officer role which are being considered. A decision will be made in August by the Cabinet Member for Finance and Corporate Resources.

5.2     The Committee also noted the written update from the Cabinet Member for Housing, Regeneration, Business and Economic Development on key aspects within the portfolio.  In the Cabinet Member's absence Ben Denton, Executive Director for Growth, Planning & Housing and Councillor Susie Burbridge responded to questions.

5.2.1   Members asked about the implications for the housing portfolio arising from the proposals in the Queen’s speech.  Mr Denton advised that there were 3 key implications: (1) a reduction in the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 and the impact that this would have on homelessness levels in the borough; (2) a disconnect between the Council’s processes for housing homeless residents verses case law and (3), the Housing Bill and the Government’s policy on extending “Right to Buy” to housing association tenants. The funding of the increased discounts are to be met by local authorities disposing of their high value council homes as they become vacant.

5.2.2   Mr Denton was asked whether the Council had any estimates of the financial impact of the proposed new benefit caps.  He advised that these were difficult to determine.  When the 10 areas of welfare change were introduced as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 the Council estimated that this would affect between 5,000 to 8,000 households. The number actually affected was 2,500.  The Council had expected homelessness levels to peak and then stabilise following the introduction of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

Report of Executive Director Growth, Planning and Housing.

6.1     The Committee considered a draft of the new Housing Strategy that had been launched for consultation.  Andrew Barry-Purssell, Head of Spatial and Environmental Planning, and Cecily Herdman, Principal Policy Officer, provided an overview of the strategy which was grouped around four themes: Homes, People, Places and Prosperity.

6.2     Before giving their views on the strategy, the Committee heard from witnesses Hugh Allen, Head of Strategy, Planning and Policy Insight, Peabody and Alisdair Chant, Managing Director, Berkeley Partnership Homes, who had been invited to the meeting to assist the Committee in its consideration of the issues.

6.3     Mr Allen addressed the Committee on behalf of Peabody. He outlined Peabody's mission and aims which was to provide good quality, affordable homes and to protect people from homelessness. He advised that the organisation owned and managed approximately 3000 homes in Westminster of which 80% was social housing. Intermediate housing including shared ownership accounted for 14% of the stock and was rising.

6.4     Mr Allen commended the Council for its consultative approach to its new Housing strategy. He welcomed the fact that the proposals were informed by an evidence base. He also welcomed the strategy's commitment to work with other agencies as he considered a joined up approach was important given the complex issues the strategy aimed to address. In respect of the themes of people and places, he considered that there were opportunities for collaboration between boroughs on some issues such as homelessness and welcomed the proposals for improving places in partnership with housing associations. He also considered that there were opportunities for sharing data to better understand residents' circumstances. In terms of the theme of prosperity, he stated that supporting people into work was a key approach to tackling poverty. Peabody was interested in exploring where it could work with the council to pool resources to support its social housing residents into jobs. Reaching people was one of the most difficult challenges and signposting people to services and the provision of outreach work was important.

6.5     Mr Allen then outlined some of the areas where Peabody welcomed more information or had concerns. He welcomed the proposals to change planning policies so that in new developments the council would ask for 60% intermediate/40% social housing as there was a need to expand the housing options for low to middle income households. Peabody was interested in the detail of the types of intermediate housing the Council was looking to develop. He advised that Peabody was having less success in shared ownership intermediate housing in Westminster due to the high cost of homes. Residents ordinarily purchase a 25% share and then remain on that share rather than  staircase. There was also an issue with affordability in social intermediate rented properties where rents are set at 80% of market value. Residents were paying on average 40% of their income on rent before service charges were taken into account. He welcomed the proposal to deliver 1,250 new affordable homes over the next five years  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

Report of Executive Director Growth, Planning and Housing.

7.1     Jake Mathias, HRA Strategy Manager, introduced a report on a review of housing management options, the Altair review. The purpose of the review was to highlight the successes and advantages of the current ALMO as well as help the council to improve performance and generate efficiencies is where possible.

7.2     The report also included CWH’s response to the Altair findings and the Council’s approach to the implementation of the review’s recommendations.

7.3     Altair concluded that the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) is financially strong and there is no financial or performance imperative to either bring the management function back in-house or to transfer the stock to an outside body. The review highlighted particular areas of focus for the Council and CWH. These included Value for Money, Communications and a need for better alignment between the goals of the Council and CWH.

7.4     It was noted that the Council and CWH are now working together to develop a new strategic framework which will set CWH’s long term priorities and align these with those of the Council and enable the Council to monitor change projects as well as ‘business as usual’.

7.5     In response to the Altair review, CWH is implementing transformation plans which will change its service delivery model through innovative IT solutions and developing plans to save £5m over the next 5 years.

7.6     Marc Wolman, Director of Customer Services and Business Transformation, and Petros Christen, Director of Finance and Strategy, CWH attended the meeting to answer questions from members.

7.7     The Committee considered the Altair report. Members questioned the overall conclusions of the review that CWH is an excellent housing manager given its challenges with value for money. The Committee was concerned that CWH is one of the most expensive housing providers (per property) in comparison with peers.

7.8     The Committee also challenged the review's findings that CWH is maintaining very high levels of satisfaction. Questions were raised about the reliability of the annual survey into resident satisfaction, particularly around the manner and range of responses received.

7.9     The review found that those members interviewed by Altair Consultants had concerns about the organisational culture at CWH.  This centred around the complexity and ambiguity of the ALMO's governance arrangements. It was felt that there was a view within the organisation that it was only responsible to the City Council as its sole shareholder rather than to residents or individual councillors. Questions were raised as to whether this was still the case or whether the review had resulted in a step change.

7.10    The Committee asked for further details about the proposed commercial activity to generate income for the HRA. Officers advised that commercial expansion would in the main involve the provision of services to third parties both within Westminster and further afield. In pursuit of this objective CWH was looking at a number of areas including lessee services which the organisation was good at and where there was the potential to expand commercially.

7.11    Members noted that Altair had found  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.