Officials have warned of “difficult decisions” ahead for social housing in Newcastle after it was revealed there are a number of gaps in the system’s compliance with key standards.
An internal review of the council’s social housing system identified a total of 16 areas where the council is not “fully compliant” with consumer standards. It comes after the council took the decision to abolish Your Homes Newcastle in the summer and take the service back in house for the first time in two decades.
The council believed savings of more than £1 million could be made along with improvements to housing conditions. However, a report presented to members of the cabinet on Monday laid bare the scale of the challenge.
The review found that while the system was performing well in areas such as anti-social behaviour and supporting residents in their tenancies, there were issues around safety and quality standards as well as around tenancies, transparency and accountability.
Speaking at the meeting, cabinet member for housing Paula Maines said: “Our priority is to make sure every home is safe, decent and sustainable. The financial crisis and needs of our stock mean we will have some difficult decisions to make in the coming months and years.
“Having completed the transfer of housing services, we have identified some areas we don’t fully comply with standards. We have notified the regulator of social housing of these breaches and what we will be doing.
“There are sixteen material gaps against the standards – mainly in areas that the regulator would consider critical to achieve a compliant grade. We are the seventh largest provider of council housing in the country, and we want to be an exemplary landlord – but we need to fix the foundations.”
The report warned that the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) has the power to issue “unlimited” fines to social landlords. It adds that the compliance failures show the council is “not delivering the services and housing our residents are entitled to”.
In terms of action being taken to remedy the issue, a string of new policies and procedures has been put forward. These include a plan to resolve the damp and mould backlog, roll out a new repairs policy and implement a new domestic abuse policy.
There were also commitments to further engage with residents on issues. This was welcomed by the Liberal Democrat opposition’s deputy leader, Cllr Peter Lovatt.
He said, “What I have seen has been very positive. I do like the idea of the customer and the tenants having a voice.
“The residents are the ones that speak to us – it’s important for them to know someone is listening. There’s so much residents would like to see change in a positive sense.
“From what I have heard there is a lot of things that we want to do that will be positive for residents.”
Council leader Karen Kilgour – speaking at her first cabinet meeting as leader – was optimistic that the situation would improve and underlined the importance of social housing to her administration.
She said, “Housing is a foundation for a good life. We take our responsibility to provide high-quality, safe and suitable council housing really seriously.
“It is absolutely fundamental to tackling inequalities in this city. I think this is a really ambitious plan for council housing.
“I’m pleased we can identify these compliance issues. There are great things ahead of us, I’m sure.”
