Agenda item

A report of the Head of Landlord Services, enabling the Group to review the draft Tenancy Support Policy 2019-2022.

A report of the Head of Landlord Services, enabling the Group to review the draft Tenancy Support Policy 2019-2022, was submitted (item 7 on the agenda filed with these minutes). 

The Cabinet Lead Member for Housing, the Head of Landlord Services and the Principal Officer Tenancy and Income Management assisted with consideration of the item and provided the following responses to issues raised:

(i)            The Council made use of an incremental approach when dealing with tenants’ rent areas.  When an account went into arrears it would trigger contact to be made with the tenant, initially to determine whether the tenant had unmet support needs or was not making all the claims for benefits that he or she was entitled to. 

(ii)          The Council benchmarked its performance against other housing providers but it could learn from the approaches that were adopted in other sectors.  However the sanction of disconnecting a utility was different to taking away a person’s home.

(iii)         If the actions of tenants were causing problems for neighbours then they would be contacted by a Housing Officer as that was a potential breach of their tenancy agreement.  Action by the Tenancy Support Team to help address the issue could take place alongside any further enforcement action that was necessary.

(iv)         While certain individuals might benefit from accommodation designated for people aged 55 or over at a younger age, the Council would have to follow its policies when making allocations.

(v)          The Council’s Tenancy Support Team and Universal Credit Officer were funded through the Housing Revenue Account and could only provide support to the Council’s tenants.  The Council had undertaken a modelling exercise and had concluded that employing an officer to assist tenants who received Universal Credit would be financially beneficial.  Some tenants who received Universal Credit would have their rent paid directly to the Council, for example if they lacked capacity or were more than eight weeks in arrears.

(vi)         To date those tenants receiving Universal Credit who were in arrears had also been in arrears prior to switching to Universal Credit.  The introduction of Universal Credit had had an impact on the Council.  The overall level of arrears and the workload for officers had increased.  However the Council had put in place extra resources to cope with that.

(vii)        It was noted that Loughborough Library would be closed for a number of months.  The Council provided computers in its reception area for customers to use to complete online forms.  Officers visiting tenants had tablet devices so they could offer similar assistance in tenants’ own homes.

The following comments were made by members of the Group:

(i)            A change could be made to section 3.2 of the policy to make it clear that safeguarding procedures were already in place and did not need to be newly developed.

(ii)          It would be helpful if further examples of the organisations with which the Council worked were included in section 10.2 of the policy.

(iii)         It was important that customers using the computers in the Council’s reception area felt that their privacy was being protected.  That could be achieved by looking at the layout of the area to prevent overlooking, providing separate rooms for people to use or attaching privacy filters to computer screens.  Reference was also made to privacy filters for councillors’ mobile computing devices.

RESOLVED

1.         that the report be noted;

2.         that it be noted that officers would look at making it clear that safeguarding procedures were already in place and did not need to be newly developed and including further examples of the organisations with which the Council worked when preparing the final version of the policy;

3.         that it be noted that the Head of Landlord Services would raise the issue of the privacy of customers using the computers in the Council’s reception area with the Head of Customer Experience and report the outcome of those discussions to the Chair of the Group.

Reasons

1.         To acknowledge the information received.

2.         To acknowledge the issues raised by the Group and how they would be dealt with.

3.         To acknowledge the issues raised by the Group and how they would be dealt with.