Guest Blog: Homes England thank Registered Providers

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The Homes England NEYTH team would like to say a huge thank you for all your hard work to achieve such a fantastic result for 17/18. From a position of being significantly under programmed in September 17, working closely with our RP partners, we ended up in a position where we could have exceeded our investment target. This was the result of our teams working closely together to shape investment proposals and using flexibilities to unlock stalled opportunities. In the NEYTH we exceeded both our starts and completions targets. This is a great result and sets us up for an even greater delivery challenge this year. Now that we have proven and demonstrated that the North can deliver, we need to continue to build on this momentum and success.

The Shared Ownership and Affordable Homes Programme is still open for new bids through continuous market engagement – funding is available for a range of tenures until 2021. We have continued with our flexible approach for 18/19 and beyond – using our land, collaboration, working with our partners to deliver more and encouraging new entrants into the programme. We also now have the ability to make acquisition tranche payments, for which we are currently seeking a future pipeline of sites for 18/19.  The NEYTH team continue to use local delegations which means that we can speed up decision making, we ask in return that you speak to your contract managers and Homes England contacts at the earliest possible opportunity to discuss and help shape your programme needs, ambitions and new schemes.

The sector now has certainty over rental income, increased funding to £9bn and reclassification – now we must continue to perform and to increase our own ambition for the North. The challenge is massive but working together we can grasp this opportunity.

For further information, please contact Victoria Keen, Strategy and Information Manager, North East, Yorkshire and The Humber. Tel: 0191 497 7619 | Ext: 7619.

Safety in Neighbourhoods Network

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For over 18 years the Northern Housing Consortium’s Anti-Social Behaviour Study Group has provided an invaluable forum for stakeholders to meet, discuss, and develop the services they provide.

Group members, taken from the NHC membership and beyond, have heard from expert speakers outlining the changes and challenges brought about by government policies.  These have included the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act, as well as specific issues facing colleagues such as domestic abuse and illegal tobacco sales.

However, budget cuts and restructures have changed the way anti-social behaviour is tackled.  It is clear now that ASB is one part of a wider neighbourhood management system protecting residents.

At the same time, multi-agency working has become an integral part of the community safety agenda. Today colleagues from Registered Providers collaborate with partners from local authorities and the emergency services in a number of ways.

With this in the mind, the NHC feels it appropriate to re-launch the ASB Study Group with a wider focus on all the work being completed to ensure safety in neighbourhoods.

The Safety in Neighbourhoods network will be free to attend for NHC members and will cover a wide variety of topics ranging from hoarding and neighbour nuisance to organised crime and the underlying role mental health issues can have in driving Anti-Social Behaviour. Most importantly, the topics covered by a mixture of guest speakers and colleagues from across the North will be determined by those who attend. The new group will also remain a forum to share ideas and learn best practice from a range of practitioners from other public and private agencies.

The first of these meetings will be confirmed soon and will include a session from Ward Hadaway looking at how ASB teams have been specifically impacted by the new GDPR regulations. Whilst there has been plenty of general information on GDPR, Ward Hadaway will guide attendees through how the new rules will affect, for example, ASB investigations, archiving, and sharing protocols with external organisations.

If you have any queries regarding the Safety in Neighbourhoods network, or you would like to input into topics covered in future meetings, please email Liam Gregson at liam.gregson@northern-consortium.org.uk.

Consultation Response – Consumer Redress

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The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government recently published a consultation “Strengthening consumer redress in the housing market” which asked what can be done to improve consumer redress across housing, including whether bringing together existing redress functions into a single housing ombudsman service could be an effective way of simplifying access to redress.

This NHC has responded to the consultation giving views on the following:

  • The main problems with the current redress arrangements
  • What would best improve redress in the housing sector
  • What more could be done to improve in-house complaints systems
  • Would a single ombudsman service simplify redress across housing

The document also addresses what steps can be taken to improve redress across the market in the short to medium term and the role of redress schemes in driving service improvements.

Read the full response here.