Brent Council recommended to bring housing management in-house

BHP's King's Drive Estate, Wembley

Brent Council is set to bring its housing management back in house if a recommendation going before Cabinet is approved. The issue brought tenants and leaseholders out in force at a recent Scrutiny Committee LINK.

They were determined to make the case for tenant involvement in any new arrangement and that any in-house arrangement be superior to that which existed before housing management was allocated to Brent Housing Partnership (BHP), an arms-length organisation.

Three options were considered - an enhanced BHP, in-house and a partnership arrangement. 

The report states:

In light of the evaluation it is concluded that the In-house option offers the best prospect of achieving the service transformation to deliver high-quality services at significantly reduced costs, benefitting from the Council’s wider experience in doing so in recent years. Accordingly, this report recommends to Cabinet that the In-house option be the preferred option. If agreed consultation will then be undertaken with all tenants and leaseholders and the results of this will be reported to Cabinet for a final decision.

2. Recommendations

That Cabinet:

 2.1  Agree that the preferred option for future housing management service provision to the Council’s tenants and leaseholders is Option 2, an In-house service, subject to consultation; 


2.2  Authorise officers to undertake consultation with Council tenants and leaseholders on the preferred option as set out in paragraph 2.1 and to then provide a further report to Cabinet on the responses to that consultation to inform a final decision on future housing management service arrangements.


 2.3  Instructs officers to report further on appropriate arrangements to provide for effective oversight and scrutiny by members and residents of the housing management service should the final decision be that the service be provided in-house.