Agenda and draft minutes
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Contact: Tom Thorn
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Apologies for Absence Minutes: 1.1 There were no apologies. |
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Urgent Items / Order of Business Minutes: 2.1 There were no urgent items, and the order of business was as laid out. |
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Declarations of Interest Minutes: 3.1 Cllr Lynch declared she was a Housing Association tenant. |
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Additional documents:
Minutes: 4.1 The Chair welcomed the guests below who were in attendance for this item:
4.2 She advised that this item and the next would form part of the Commission’s evidence gathering in its review around housing associations, and the partnership work between them and the Council.
4.3 This first item would look at how the Council and housing associations worked together to meet housing need in the borough, including how they ensured that those in most need of housing were able to take up tenancies and sustain them for the longer term.
4.4 The Commission was aware that there were agreements to allow the Council to nominate households from its housing waiting list for shares of housing association properties becoming available or vacant. This item would seek to explore how these arrangements worked, and any challenges.
4.5 She thanked guests for having provided papers. She asked that it started with guests from the Council making any opening comments around their paper.
4.6 Following that, she would invite questions for Officers focused on the effectiveness of the Council’s practices around nominations.
4.7 She would then ask representatives of housing associations to make any opening comments before seeking to hold a separate question and answer sessions on their work and approaches.
4.8 Thanking the Chair, the Head of Benefits and Housing Needs made the following substantive points: · Hackney was in the midst of a housing crisis. The numbers of households on the Council’s housing register were at a historic high of over 13,300, and the numbers of Hackney households living in temporary accommodation the highest for a decade.
· Demand for social housing was far outweighing supply. In addition, greater shares of those households approaching the Council for help and support, had complex needs. These could include mental and physical ill health conditions, caring for disabled children, and drug and alcohol dependency.
· Nomination agreements between councils and housing associations were intended to ensure that all affordable housing providers played a role in ... view the full minutes text for item 4. |
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Additional documents:
Minutes: 5.1 The following guests were in attendance for this item:
5.2 The Interim Director, Regeneration, made the following opening points: · The national policy context around housing had been fluid over recent years.
· Post the 2019 general elections, indications were that home ownership would be one of its main areas of focus.
· There was significant interest from profit making registered providers in developing in Hackney and across London. He felt these organisations would be seen by Government as playing a major role in delivery of their policies in forthcoming years
· Hackney had been quite unique in moving to direct delivery of new housing through its regeneration programmes, which had now been in place for almost a decade.
· The model was similar to that of developing registered providers, with in house-specialisms in design and delivery. The programme was focused on the delivery of 4 types of stock – social rent, shared ownership, Hackney Living Rent, and units for open market sale, the proceeds from which subsidised the homes for social rent.
· In this way the Council had a cross subsidy model generally similar to that of registered providers, although it was important to note that Hackney’s focus was on securing subsidy for the delivery of social rented homes. The Hackney Living Rent model aimed to provide housing at rents broadly in line with a third of household incomes.
· There were challenges around the cross subsidy model. It relied on a buoyant and active housing market, but there had been falls in actively. Development costs were increasing. For providers of affordable housing, this had been compounded by falls in subsidy from government. Combined, these factors helped to explain why the number of new units delivered by housing associations had fallen, as per the table in the paper provided.
· New development needed to play a key role in helping to address the crisis in the supply of affordable housing. However, there were other aspects also which as the local housing authority Hackney was working to address.
· Examples included working to enforce against buy ... view the full minutes text for item 5. |
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Minutes of meeting 14th January 2020 Additional documents:
Minutes: 6.1 The minutes of the meeting 14th January 2020 were agreed as an accurate record.
6.2 The Chair reminded Members that the 14th January was called following a mains burst on Thames Water’s network in October 2019, which had caused major flooding in the N4 area of the borough.
6.3 The meeting had explored the cause of the burst, the response of Thames Water, and Thames Water’s general performance in managing its network.
6.3 During the meeting, there had also been discussions on Thames Water’s responses to two previous, separate mains burst floods in Hackney – particularly that in the Lea Bridge Ward in 2018.
6.4 The Chair advised Members that further to the meeting on 14th January, Thames Water had made a written submission to her. They had requested that this was considered at the point that the minutes from the meeting were being reviewed.
6.5 This statement was intended to seek to address points made in the meeting, which Thames Water reported as having been factually incorrect. These were around Thames Water not having taken up the Council’s offer of training in emergency responses following the flood in Lea Bridge, and around a lack of support by Thames Water for a resident effected by that flood.
6.6 The Chair said she would read out the statement.
6.7 However, before she did so she wished to advise that Council Officers did not recognise Thames Water’s understanding that Thames Water had been advised by the Council that the training aspect was not required.
6.8 From further dialogue with Thames Water, she advised that its understanding that this was the case appeared to be based on an email exchange between a Council Officer and Thames Water. However, Council Officers had noted that this this email regarded a separate matter (a debrief following the incident) and not the offer of training made by the Council nor the view of both Officers and Members Thames Water could benefit from this
6.9 The Chair read out the statement below, from Steve Spencer (Chief Operating Officer, Thames Water):
Dear Councillor Patrick
Thank you for inviting us to the ‘The Living in Hackney’ Scrutiny meeting on Tuesday 14th January at Parkwood Primary School. I was pleased that we were able to give our account of the flooding events in Queen’s Drive and Leigh Bridge Road and hope the evidence we provided will lead to some positive recommendations for both Hackney Council and Thames Water.
I have looked into some specific points raised during the session as I feel they were not accurately represented and would now like to clarify our position on these matters:
It was stated at the meeting, that following the Lea Bridge flood in 2018, Thames Water had declined to follow up offers from Hackney Council to work together on training for similar emergency events that might happen in the future. Having reviewed e-mail correspondence between Hackney Council and our Emergency Risk and Business Resilience Specialist, I can advise ... view the full minutes text for item 6. |
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Living in Hackney Scrutiny Commission- 2019/20 Work Programme Additional documents: Minutes: 7.1 The work programme was noted. |
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Additional documents: Minutes: 8.1 The terms of reference had been agreed in the last meeting but had been included here to make them a matter of public record. They were noted. |
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Any Other Business Minutes: 9.1 There was no other business. |