Agenda item

Objective: To provide Committee with an opportunity to review and feedback on the Compliance Strategy and associated policies before they are submitted to Cabinet.

The Director of Governance, Housing and Communities, introduced the report and explained that this was the first time that a Compliance Strategy was being recommended for adoption. The Compliance Strategy seeks to set out the three lines of defence on how the compliance programme will be managed to ensure we are getting the right data, that the data is validated and, in some cases, external assurance is provided. The Compliance Strategy has been developed with Pennington Choices and includes an action plan on how our position can continue to be improved. Progress will be monitored through the monthly Compliance Group, which the Chair attends. It will also be reported to the Cabinet Housing Committee in 6-months’ time. The Compliance Strategy is supported by six policies developed by Pennington Choices in line with industry best practice. These documents are legislative and quite technical to ensure that they are legally compliant. As these are not tenant friendly work is also being carried out to review the processes to create internal procedure documents and an annual tenant communication plan is being created to provide key information to tenants. The Tenant Panel were consulted on the policies but no feedback was received.

The Committee’s discussion raised the following points:

-       To ensure our approach is people based tenancy audits are being undertaken to provide a better understanding of our tenants. Arrangements will be changed to tailor services to tenants’ needs better, for example, to provide information in different languages or communicate verbally. Consideration will also be given on how to communicate with tenants who may benefit from more traditional methods, such as noticeboards.

-       These policies do not relate to leaseholders, as they have different requirements, liabilities, and obligations. A separate piece of work will consider the needs of leaseholders.

-       It was agreed that detailed questions would be shared outside of the meeting.

-       Currently data is still stored in a number of systems – primarily QL, Excel and on contractors’ portals. We are in the process of moving everything to QL to provide assurance that we have a single source of the truth. Excel provides opportunities for mistakes to be introduced through hidden columns and accidental changes. As this work is completed all data should be stored on either QL or via contractors. Currently a piece of work is also being carried out to understand the capabilities of the QL housing management system, which should be completed in the next few weeks.

-       Documotive is a bolt-on system for QL used to store documents, such as communication with tenants.

-       Risk management is currently being migrated to Verto. This does not connect directly to QL and we are not aware of whether it may be able to.

-       It was suggested that Tenant Voice be used to highlight that new systems and people are in place to encourage tenants who may have had bad experiences in the past and lost faith in the service, to report issues again.

-       Privately owned properties and leasehold properties are not required to have valid gas certificates. An encouragement programme is in place to encourage leaseholders to carry out annual checks and provide the certificates to the council. Colleagues are working with the legal team to consider whether terms could be introduced to make this a requirement for new leaseholders. Awareness raising of gas safety checks are being included in the annual service charge paperwork which will be issued in the next few weeks. This will include directions to our gas contractor who would provide discounts to leaseholders.

The Cabinet Housing Committee unanimously recommended that Cabinet:

a)    adopt the Compliance Strategy (Appendix 2); and

b)   adopt the following Compliance Policies

                     i.        Gas and Heating Safety (Appendix 3)

                    ii.        Electrical Safety (Appendix 4)

                  iii.        Fire Safety (Appendix 5)

                  iv.        Asbestos (Appendix 6)

                    v.        Water Safety (Appendix 7)

                  vi.        Lift Safety (Appendix 8)