Bring back a Housing Committee so we have effective oversight and scrutiny!

 

 

There was something rather familiar about the issues discussed at the Audit and Standards Advisory Sub-Committee and the solutions put  forward. The Sub-committee were discussing the actions being undertaken following the Council reporting itself to the Regulator of Social Housing,

In March 2016 Brent Housing Partnership  was put into Special Measures after performance failings. BHP was an arms length adjunct of Brent Council.  Some of the Council's concerns were included in a report to Cabinet in June 2016:

Eventually Brent Council decided to bring housing management back in-house and BHP was dissolved in October 2017:

 

Tenants were promised:

• More investment in up-to-date technology, such as a new smartphone app for simple transactions
• More joined up approach between housing and other council services, to provide a better customer experience for tenants and leaseholders
• A more responsive and flexible repairs service
• More and better targeted investment in estates, blocks, and houses
• Review of service standards, to ensure we are delivering what residents want 

 

Better engagement of residents in decision-making about their homes and estates.

How far those promises have been kept can be judged by the contributions to this blog by tenants on the St Raphael's and South Kilburn estates as well as the findings of the Housing Regulator.

Audit set out to ask frank and honest questions. It emerged that when Spencer Randolph became director of Housing Services some 11 months ago, he discovered the failings in the council housing service and saw no option but to report them to the Regulator.  During the meeting he remarked that he had previously held private landlords to account via the licensing scheme, and now in his role as a 'landlord' in change of Brent council housing, he had to hold the council to account. He had previously been unaware of the gravity of the situation.

Rather than going over old ground (presumably including who was to blame for the failures) he wanted to move on, and the Council will begin again to carry out assessments on all 33 of their high-rise blocks and pick up the required actions now. 

He said that the reason the fire risk assessments were not done properly was in the way they had been recorded - issues, actions taken and closed down (completed). The new system introduced two years ago should indicate when information is missing but had only been in active use since he came in 11 months ago and wanted up to date and robust information.

Cllr Malloy asked if staff had been recording that they had taken an action when they hadn't. Randolph said they didn’t know yet, that would come as a consequence of the audit that was being undertaken.

Cllr Long recognised that he had inherited the problem and asked it the issue was lack of tenant engagement and scrutiny. Randolph said it was probably lack of oversight of data management from a management perspective and inadequate training of staff. An engagement team had been brought in in March 2025 and were doing lots of engagement. In fact, the Regulator had complimented the authority on the engagement approach they were now taking.

 The audit currently taking place would take 6-8 weeks including report writing and he expected it would take a year to 18 months to achieve a C2 or C1 compliance rating.

He listed the 'Big Eight' that were being audited: fire safety, asbestos management, electricity and gas safety, water, lifts, damp, mould, smoke and Co2 detectors.  There would be a 'deep dive' into these compliance issues.

Cllr Kabir said that housing was the most important part of the council's work. Years ago, there had been a Housing Committee and personally, she though it should be brought back. Housing needs far more scrutiny and overview than it has now, given that it is of huge importance to the council. 

The councillor asked about the additional resources needed to address the issues, how much money would it cost, and where would the money come from?

Spencer Randolph said that the Regulator would want a plan in place to achieve compliance within the next 2 to 3 years. Many compliance posts had not been filled so he was recruiting to those. A new Strategic Compliance Manager had been recruited as well as an interim head of service. He would be bringing in additional posts in the Compliance Team over and above current structures. 

Cllr Smith asked about the 12,500 fire safety actions that had not been carried out, what proportion of the total were they? She agreed with Cllr Kabir over the need for a Housing Committee and asked about contractor management - Wates was often frequently the offender in complaints.  Randolph said that there were c36,000 repairs per year and wates would be named as it was the only contractor. There would now be two contractors in future with more robust management. Some of the 12,500 actions could date as much as 3 years.

Many London boroughs were in a similar position to Brent due to lack of investment in stock, ageing housing, and frozen rents. The London outlier was Newham with a C4 judgment.

 Cllr Malloy asked about the money needed for all the above and whether it would have to be funded from the Housing Revenue Account (HRA),

It is worth recording Randolph's reply for future reference:

Our business as a landlord is based upon our rents and how much it costs to run our business. So, we will need to make sure we are very stringent on where we can make savings elsewhere, better contract management, making sure we are maximising our rental income, maximising the payments we're getting from leaseholders and works we're carrying out there. These are all changes we’ve got in our Business Plan. 

Responding to Cllr Patel he said:

We can't kick this can down the road. If money needs to be spent to make people's houses safe, we can't keep putting it off and putting it off. If the root causality [of the failure] is that we find it was put off because we didn't want to spend the money, then that's not a good position to be in. 

I think that with proven financial management and a realistic timetable then things can be budgeted for within our existing HRA budget.

Spencer Randolph did not think that the Regulator's judgement would impct on the councils housing projects but another member of the corporate team said it was still a risk.