Training and development opportunities for senior leaders  

Kate Maughan, Director of Member Engagement, NHC 

In 2020, the NHC ran its first Action Learning Set for members, facilitated by Action Learning Associates. While Action Learning is a great tool for any topic, we designed the sets around decarbonisation – the net zero agenda is a priority for our members, and when thinking about new skills, new technologies and a whole new direction, it can feel like a step into the unknown, so we felt this was a great first theme to tackle. 

What is Action Learning? 

Action Leaning is a process, rooted in listening and question making, that drives effective decision making and supports set members to take new action. It provides a safe place for learning, thinking, planning and decision making and in this case brought together five senior leaders from across the NHC membership. Each set is guided by a facilitator who keeps set members to the discipline of asking questions to probe and explore in depth, rather than moving into the familiar responses of discussion, advocacy or offering your own solutions or opinions. Set members learn from each other’s experience, offer each other honest feedback and build a network of trusted peers who together explore the big questions in the work. 

Sets are deliberately kept small to maximise the value members get from taking part, and meet four times over five to six months. 

Action Learning can form a fundamental part of your training and development programme for senior staff, and offers something much more tailored than many standard training and leadership programmes. 

What were the key issues raised on decarbonisation? 

At each set meeting every member shared a challenge they would like to work on (called a ‘bid’) and the set as a whole decided which two bids would take priority, based on how the individual communicated urgency, importance or how they were currently feeling about the issue. Some of the bids from our set included: 

• Business planning and budgeting around decarbonisation – what should be built in? 
• Developing a zero-carbon strategy and action plan 
• Where do I start? And how do I get buy-in across the organisation, so decarbonisation doesn’t feel like just one person’s job? 

• How do we begin to engage customers in this agenda and, ultimately, offer them a viable proposition? 

There was a lot of common ground here, with a number of set members looking to change their thinking and solve problems on the same or similar issues. 

Members explored these issues in depth throughout the process, and alongside the sharing of ideas, they also shared policies, strategies and other practical tools, while developing a new way of thinking about their challenges. 

How worthwhile was the process? 

We asked members to evaluate the Action Learning Set; all of them felt more confident about how they would approach their decarbonisation work going forward as a result of the process, and, crucially, felt that they had a better understanding of decarbonisation at the end of the four sessions. Members told us at the start that they wanted to: 

• Develop a network of senior leaders working in the same field; 
• Share information and learning with and from each other around decarbonisation; 
• Experience Action Learning and strengthen the transferable skills of listening, question-making and feedback. 

During evaluation, all members felt they had achieved their expectations in these areas, and despite joining the sets with these skills already in place, came away with much improved confidence about their ability to listen and ask questions. 

What were the top takeaways for set members? 

Here are some member quotes: 

• “New contacts, the Action Learning approach (love it!), giving myself the time to do the sessions.” 
• “New working relationships, fresh ideas, a refocussed approach.” 
• “Everyone is in the same position, there is support out there, be honest and open as you get more out of things.” 

A knowledgeable and sustainable network 

This set want to stay connected, and agreed to arrange a future meeting that they would self-facilitate. Members told us they highly valued the network they had created through Action Learning and found it a ‘safe place’ to bring up challenges and find reassurance. One member commented: 

“It’s been good to make time to do this; it feels like a luxury and I have thoroughly enjoyed every session.” 

What’s next, and how can you get involved? 

Following the success of the first set, here at the NHC we are very keen to continue to work with Action Learning Associates to build more Action Learning Sets to grow members’ confidence and networks – we’ll be launching new sets later this year, but would welcome your feedback on other themes you would find useful (some suggestions already have included the Social Housing White Paper, people management and development, and communicating with customers). 

Sets can be run like this one, bringing together different people from across our Northern membership, or can be run in-house as part of your training and development programme for wider staff groups. 

If you’d like to get involved, please do get in touch with me at kate.maughan@northern-consortium.org.uk and look out for more details about our Action Learning offer later in 2021. 

Other ways we can support 

We’re doing a huge amount of influencing and engagement work for our members on the net-zero agenda; use the links below to find support and information. 

On-demand webinars from last year’s #Our North Net Zero event series 

Documents, publications and resources 

Our next series of online Net Zero events will be launched later this year, and bookings are now open (with no charge for NHC members) for our annual Northern Housing Summit, taking place on the mornings of the 2nd and 4th November – book your place here now!

Geraldine Howley, Chair of the CIH Governing Board,  GEM Programme Director

As a passionate believer in partnership working, I was privileged to be directly involved in the NHC Commission for Housing in the North. Looking back at the five years since the publication of the Commission’s report in 2016, it’s also important to bear in mind we have experienced Grenfell and Covid, plus defining social justice campaigns like Black Lives Matter, all of which have brought people and organisations together to make a difference to people’s lives. Of course, with a crystal ball, we might have said even more in 2016 about the growing importance of collaboration as the means of addressing health, economic, environmental, educational and other inequalities, plus of course, building safety. But thankfully, in this changing world we are demonstrating the critical importance of partnership working and we have some great examples of local authorities and housing associations working together in a variety of ways beyond simply providing housing.

The 2015 report of the Commission was fundamentally right in defining the Housing crisis in the North as being distinctly different to that facing the rest of the country. The Commission recognised that in the North there are areas where the issue isn’t simply about a shortage of supply or affordability, but also low value, obsolete properties and other issues such as fuel poverty and economic discontent.

Lord Best said the Commission was calling for primacy to be given to place, and the need to work together in new forms of collaboration to make this happen with flexibility, powers and resources. The catalyst for making this change has been local authority strategic leadership which has united housing providers and developers in a shared vision for meeting common place-based objectives. Strong civic leadership with a convincing local narrative has set the tone for enabling the sharing of best practice. Local, local, local is the focus for successful partnership working, and the sharing of skills and other resources to meet the housing opportunities in the North.

In Bradford, the Goitside regeneration is an exemplar of partnership working at a local level and clearly demonstrates how place-based regeneration does work. Chain Street is part of this regeneration and provides an excellent case study of how the collaboration of Bradford Council, Incommunities, Homes England and the private sector can achieve place-based transformation. The Bradford Health and Well-being Board provides another example of local authority leadership working innovatively to embrace the housing sector. Partners from housing have joined NHS, CCG, the third sector, police, fire and Bradford council in an inclusive approach to improve lives in the communities they serve.

In 2018 Calderdale Council and Together Housing Group entered into an investment partnership to deliver six hundred and fifty new homes by 2023 across Calderdale. The Council supports the partnership through the identification of land in its ownership which is transferred to Together Housing Group below market value to achieve ‘best value’ through the realisation of new, high quality, affordable homes. Beech Hill in the centre of Halifax is one of the challenging projects which will enable £15.5m investment to provide a mix of two, three and four bedroomed homes at affordable rents. This innovative project will incorporate cycle ways and public open space.

Partnership working is also realising huge benefits at a regional level, as well as locally. The West Yorkshire Housing Partnership provides an important vehicle for engaging housing associations in an improved relationship with the Combined Authority. The partnership provides a single voice for housing in the region and has engaged in the Brownfield Housing Fund Programme which will see three hundred affordable homes built at the South Bank in Leeds.

Creating a better world requires partnership working. The Commission for Housing in the North was right to highlight its criticality to addressing the unique challenges we face. It is so encouraging to see so many local, and regional, organisations providing the leadership to work effectively together. We will need partnership working for many decades to come; together we are stronger in improving people’s lives.

7,500 social housing tenants from across the North will this week be invited to register their interest in taking part in a first of its kind engagement exercise. Of those eager to take part, a final ‘Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury’ of 30 residents will be tasked with developing recommendations as to how they, along with social housing providers and others, can work together to tackle climate change in our homes and neighbourhoods.

Launched by the Northern Housing Consortium alongside partners First Choice Homes Oldham, Karbon Homes, Salix Homes, Thirteen Group, and Yorkshire Housing, the Social Housing Tenants’ Climate Jury is a concept adapted from Citizens’ Juries and Assemblies, a ‘deliberative democracy’ approach for making decisions. Participants are selected at random to deliberate and seek consensus on a set issue, before producing a set of recommendations for policymakers.

In recent years Citizens’ Juries have become a popular way to include the public on the question of how best to tackle climate change. 2020 saw the House of Commons convene the national ‘Climate Assembly UK’ where 108 people from all walks of life met for six weeks to answer the question “how should the UK meet its target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050?”. At a local level Climate Juries have been held in Leeds, Sheffield, Oxford, Cambridge, Devon, Kendal, and seven London Boroughs.

Working with community interest company Shared Future and adapted to focus on the social housing sector the Jury, made up of tenants recruited from each partner Housing Association, will explore tenants’ views on retrofit, their opinions of specific measures, and their preferences for how these kinds of interventions should be undertaken in their homes and neighbourhoods. They will also have the chance to say what information they need before, during, and after the retrofit process to use low carbon heating technology confidently.

As part of the project an Oversight Panel has been set up to provide purpose, build legitimacy and ensure a rigorous process whereby the Jury is informed by balanced and accurate information. The Panel brings together a range of stakeholders with project partners being joined by experts representing national, regional and local governance, the civil service, the tenant voice agenda, retrofit practitioners, academia, and the charitable sector. Importantly, all Oversight Panel members are in a position to reflect on the outcomes of the Jury and how they relate to their own areas of work.

The findings of the Jury will be presented at the Northern Housing Summit on the 2nd and 4th of November.

For more information on the Social Housing Tenants’ Jury, including the Oversight Panel, please visit the Northern Housing Consortium’s dedicated webpage:

https://www.northern-consortium.org.uk/the-social-housing-tenants-climate-jury/

Tuesday 2^nd November – AM & Thursday 4^th November – AM

The Northern Housing Summit is back for 2021 as an online event! Taking place during Glasgow’s COP26 and hosted over two half days, our focus will again be firmly on decarbonisation and net zero as a key priority for our membership.

 

Day 1 will feature high-impact keynote speeches from leaders and influencers on the net zero agenda. We will also launch the findings from our Tenants’ Jury, a group of tenants from our Northern membership who are considering the design and implementation of decarbonisation measures across the home. The conclusions drawn by the Jury will enable members to truly embed the tenant voice in the design and delivery of domestic retrofit measures.

 

Day 2 will be focused, practical workshop sessions – we know from last year’s feedback that our members enjoy the opportunity to get together in smaller groups to learn, discuss and challenge. Join us on day 2 for discussion-oriented, informative breakout sessions.

 

There is no charge for members to attend the Summit, and details on how to book will be available soon. Do keep an eye out for speaker announcements over the coming weeks – we’ll be delighted to see you there.

The Commission for Housing in the North showed us what needs to be done: a million homes in the North of England require upgrading. Most are owner occupied, often by people with relatively low incomes. But the worst conditions are found in the PRS. Quite apart from relieving fuel poverty and the miseries of cold and damp homes, the decarbonisation ambitions of government require action now. But who is going to organise and carry out the work to all these properties?

Private landlords are frequently unable or unwilling to invest in defective properties. Having expanded exponentially the PRS is, in any case, being reined back by tax changes and regulation. Poorer homeowners are even worse placed to find the money and organise necessary building works. The government’s Green Homes Grant scheme might have helped but this has proved a failure.

Thirty years ago I would have said: ‘By 2021 the Home Improvement Agencies – the Staying Put and Care and Repair organisations – will have covered country and branched out from Disabled Facilities Grants to comprehensive upgrading work’. My prediction would have been entirely wrong! Unlike housing associations that were created, or revived, in the 1970’s and 80’s, the HIAs have remained small, scattered, and under-resourced.

So what about social housing landlords?

These face problems of their own in improving their stock, achieving Decent Homes Mark 2 and taking advantage of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund in the future. Some of them have big problems in rectifying cladding and other defects, with government not keen to bail out their rented properties. But realistically it is the social housing landlords – Councils and housing associations – that surely represent the best option in actually delivering what we all agree is needed. These are the bodies already engaged in construction activities, in working with local communities, in handling large sums of public money, and often in supporting training and jobs. And they are in every town and city. They are fully regulated and know how to work with central and local government.

The Affordable Housing Commission recommended that as part of the post-pandemic recovery, government should establish a National Housing Conversion Fund. This would enable social housing landlords to acquire properties from some of the private landlords now exiting the market (not least because of the Covid consequences in rent arrears and the hassles of seeking repossession in the Courts). The Fund would achieve serious payback in achieving several goals: preventing homelessness, improving unfit property, generating jobs and skills, fulfilling levelling up ambitions, and saving health and social care costs.

The AHC recognised that the often-painstaking work of upgrading and reletting individual properties may not suit the operating practices of today’s large scale social landlords. We thought it likely that in some places a partnership with smaller, community-based organisations would achieve the best of all worlds.

Could this theme be extended to cover partnerships with new or existing HIAs? In times past several housing associations had Home Improvement Agencies linked to them. Hanover, for example, had 21 such bodies covering different geographical areas. These provided advice and guidance, handyperson services and organised Disabled Facilities Grants to improve accessibility. Over time, Hanover shed these subsidiary bodies, some of which continued independently.

Is the time right for a revival of these partnerships, capturing the strength of the social housing sector to address the crying need for a huge national catch up in modernising outdated stock?

Will it be the zero-carbon agenda that triggers the level of new investment from central government to get the social housing landlords to take on this hugely important task?