Meeting of Kent Housing Technical Group. Present Glyn Pritchard Swale Borough Council

Transcription

1 Minutes Meeting of Kent Housing Technical Group 16 February 2011 Location of meeting Tonbridge and Malling Offices Present Glyn Pritchard Swale Borough Council Kerry Petts Shepway District Council Linda Hibbs Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council Steve O Shea Gravesham Borough Council Steve.oshea@gravesham.gov.uk Claire Pickering Tunbridge Wells Borough Council claire.pickering@tunbridgewells.gov.uk Robin Kennedy Dover District Council Robin.kennedy@dover.gov.uk Mary Smith Sevenoaks District Council Mary.Smith@sevenoaks.gov.uk Richard Hopkins Thanet District Council Richard.hopkins@thanet.gov.uk Stuart White Maidstone Borough Council Stuartwhite@maidstone.gov.uk Vic Gouldstone Medway Council vicgouldstone@medway.gov.uk Hazel Skinner Thomas Best- Shaw Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council Ashford Borough Council hazel.skinner@tmbc.gov.uk thomas.best-shaw@ashford.gov.uk Julian Watts Maidstone Borough Council julianwatts@maidstone.gov.uk Meeting commenced 10:00 am Meeting finished 1.00 pm

2 1 Apologies Maurice Butler, Rachel Evans, Ian MacKay, Maureen Laney, Susan Coughlin 2 Minutes of meeting held on 3 rd November 2010 Received: Minutes as above agreed as accurate save for one item detailed below by KP. RK/HS 3 Matters arising from the minutes of the meeting held on 3rd November Feedback from KHOG-PSH RK re Overcrowding. Had a recent case in Dover. Hoping that the proposed change in April to Housing Benefits will resolve. RK Explained those changes. Instead of migrants needing to work for a year it changes to having to show they have been looking for work for 3 months. CP spoke about a case in Tunbridge Wells 11 migrants, some sleeping in the kitchen. TBS Planning in Ashford have become more proactive in overcrowding cases. GP said planning in Swale also limiting to 6. LH said she couldn t now find the Kent and Medway housing Strategy document anywhere it seemed to have disappeared from public view. KP said error on minutes that states Shepway are considering the use of discretionary funding for DFG, this is incorrect. They are not. Some discussion about competencies and chartered status. Questioned whether it will apply to housing EHO s in the future. VG felt that it would but the CIEH were in cloud cuckoo. GP said that he could see a future whereby EHO s were not directly employed by Local Authorities. RK gave a brief resume as to what was discussed at the Kent Housing Officers private sector housing officer s group. There had been a discussion regarding what other groups relevant to our work were operating in Kent. A family tree should be produce to ensure that there was no duplication of work. SW said LH at T and M had produced a list that could be used as a basis. 2

3 There had been a talk by Roland Taylor at CEN regarding how CEN could work with L/A s in the future. There had been a discussion of Housing Associations and DFG s. It appeared that only T and M had taken the issue to members for agreement. Other councils were proposing to do likewise, some quicker than others! Marion Money of the NLA spoke about a tenant s accreditation scheme. 5 Houseproud and alternatives RK said he had been approached by Houseproud and asked whether there was any interest in Kent following the Comprehensive Spending Review and general cutting of capital budgets. SW explained the Just Retirement equity release scheme operating in Maidstone. LH explained the South Coast Money Line scheme Appeared to be no interest in Houseproud in Kent. RK to inform them RK 6 Fire Safety Group Discussed: KP has made some comments on protocol. RK explained how the protocol came into being. Explained about large flatted properties in Dover built in the 1950 s. Explained about difficulties with taking action. Fire Brigade took it over. The flats had older vulnerable occupants. For proper protection the blocks require detection in the flats themselves. Counsel opinion from a top barrister in the fire field was that cannot deal with it under the RRO. RH said in Thanet the Brigade still thought they could do it GP said in Swale they have never thought they could do it RK Will have to serve notices on individual owners. MS said makes sense to do all the work at once. Discussion about what was in freeholders domain and what isn t RH happy about Brigade taking over purpose built S/C flats. 3

4 7 Accreditation views on the future. Discussed: Shepway, Dover, and Gravesham want to pull out of KLAS scheme Swale, Medway, Thanet and Maidstone want to continue with KLAS RH said they are linking the scheme to selective licensing fees. VG said they had a home bond incentive for KLAS accredited landlords. GP said that a review was being done by the housing group and Tanya Wenham was leading. GP said there were about 700 accredited landlords in Kent KP said very poor take up in Shepway despite their best efforts. Wanted to only give bonds to accredited landlords but had to back off and now only offer not to inspect properties for accredited landlords. RK Has approached Jessica who operates KLAS for reduced fees but has not received a response MS Have around 50 accredited properties in their scheme CP said keeping their scheme going despite lack of funds. TBS said Ashford s scheme working well and linked to a grant incentive. RH said had looked at KLAS website and found it difficult to find local pages. Questioned whether it had changed recently. All it seems to do is point to partners and the front page just seems to refer to London. RK said was looking at NLA scheme GP said didn t want a scheme that favoured one landlord organisation. KP said can recognise other accreditation schemes and spending 2.5K and not getting any accredited landlords was a waste of money. GP said the London scheme were looking at getting sponsorship in order to reduce costs 4

5 8 Chair of the group RK said that after chairing the group for 20+years it was time to step down. HS had volunteered to take on the chair with RK to act as Vice chair for now with KP to take over at some point. All were ask to consider the future direction of the group, ideas for discussion items etc. Ideas please to HS or RK. 9 Regional Housing Board update LH gave an update of West Kent. On target for full spend. Explained our interest with South Coast Money Line (SCML) and said they would be willing to do some at risk work in Kent RK said East Kent group had not met in a while, last October he thought. They are due a final feedback session in April. Had problems with CEN and spend. Thanet, Dover and Shepway will not spend their funding by April. Swale will have. Thought to have met their targets despite not spending all the funding. RK said 60K of recycled funds had come back in Dover. LH suggested collating figures across Kent. All thought a good idea. LH 10 Update of Issues around Districts. Tonbridge and Malling- No major changes of staff, One member of staff leaving and not being replaced. No major redundancies. Now sharing a Housing Options Manager with Gravesham. Discretionary grant budget of 140K and 201K towards DFG s Tunbridge Wells Staff restructure has already happened. CP gave a run down of Emergency Prohibition action taken on a case with 11 people living over a kebab shop. Discretionary grant budget 100K Sevenoaks Lost 5 in the housing team. PSH now have 3 FT and 1 PT staff. PSH merging with Housing Options. Jane Ellis now managing both teams. Empty Homes work is going into Policy team. Team leaders yet to be appointed. Louise Shrubsole has gone and team likely to get some of her work. MS also told group about a case where Brigade served a prohibition notice on accommodation over a restaurant. Swale -1.5 posts frozen for 2 months. No cuts thus far. Housing Options team expanding. Seems to be an influx of 5

6 London Investment landlords. No discretionary funding. Thanet 75 posts going across the council. Thought to translate into 30/40 redundancies. Housing team largely unaffected. Directorate split away from Environmental Health. 400K towards DFG s no other funding. Took one notorious landlord to court resulting in 10,000 fine, 115 costs. HMO non licensing case going to court. Selective licensing causing issues. Hostile meeting with the reformed SPLA. Possible judicial review on selective licensing. Shepway Nothing to report on changes to structure. Have been told to find 300K on budget. They have a part time officer retiring in December. Having another Clean Sweep operation, Harbour area being targeted 100 flats overcrowded. Eastern Europeans mainly. Recent stabbing in locality. Reviewing list of Empty properties using Oldham s prioritisation form. 100K for DFG s and smaller home safe loans Gravesham Grants officer retiring in 6 months. No other changes. 50K discretionary funding + some DFG money Medway 167 people going in an initial phase. 4 staff in PSH going this week. Empty properties are no longer a priority. If no Cat 1 s then not a priority. VG told group about a case whereby they were about to take emergency remedial action for some dodgy electrics and then the Fire Brigade stepped in and cut off the electrics leaving tenants in occupation using candles!! Lots of enforcement work. No funding news. Ashford- Period of stability. One post going end of March. TBS told us of an ombudsman case relating to an empty property. No Discretionary funding Maidstone PSH manager post going in March. PSH and Housing Options being married. SW told group about RPT case involving a landlord who owns property across Kent. RPT found in favour of the Council. Giving the owner 8 weeks to complete the work on the notice. SW and JW explained that just after the tribunal hearing the owner assaulted council staff and other councils were he owns property might like to put him on their at risk registers. SW explained they have been quite successful in getting discretionary funding. 300K for CEN work. 300K for landlord s assistance. 100K for Home repair assistance. 65K for Handyperson service and 250K for DFG top up. Dover Lost 18 posts. Council into shared services Sharing Council tax, Housing Benefits and I/T. Housing Options and PSH in East Kent with Dover, Thanet and Canterbury joining in April with Thanet actually joining in 2 years time. Waiting for a business plan. Then CX agreement. Host authority will be Thanet. Many complications Agency services and computer systems being just 2! RK told us of a case involving a hotel where 2 floors had been licensed as an HMO. The hotel was now (it seems) using other floors. Discussion about whether it was a breach of license conditions or a failure to licence. 6

7 11 Any Other Business Group thought the latter. 60K recycled funding and may not have any other funding to top up DFG s MS enquired about the use of the Gas safety certificate protocol with HSE HS/VG/RK All use the protocol and referral system although there is an issue with feedback. In general the protocol is being used. Needs to be revisited as HSE have moved out of Ashford. VG said he would send HSE contact details to HS VG RH brought up a licensing issue and whether CQC made it exempt. Some discussion general view that it needs licensing. HS reminded group to let her know about future ideas and future discussion topics 13/10 Dates of next meetings RK told group about a leaflet being produced by KEEP to raise awareness amongst tenants. Theme generally is Can you afford to rent AND heat this house Also informed group about recent RPT decisions on condensation issues. Where cavity wall and loft insulation where thrown out. HS then presented RK with a gift and vote of thanks from the group for his 22 years as chairperson. 8 th June th August th November 2011 All meetings at Tonbridge and Malling Signed: (Chairman) 17/6/11 Dated: 7