Regional climate coalitions gather pace

| |by

Regional climate coalitions in Yorkshire & Humber and the North East have gathered pace this month. The North’s housing sector is playing an important role in both coalitions.

On 17th March, the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Comission held a well-attended launch event, which is available to watch again on YouTube. The Commission is an independent advisory body set up to bring actors from the public, private and third sectors together to support and guide ambitious climate actions across the region. It is part of the Place-Based Climate Action Network.

Martyn Broadest, Executive Director at NHC member Connect Housing Association, is one of the Commissioners, joining commissioners from across the public, private and voluntary sectors. The opportunities around housing retrofit were raised several times at the launch event, including by Sheffield City-Region Mayor Dan Jarvis. You can read Martyn’s blog about the first meeting of the Yorkshire & Humber Climate Commission on the Connect Housing website.

In the North East, the NHC is facilitating the housing retrofit workstream of the North East England Climate Coalition.  NEECCo is a cross-sector initiative bringing the region together to tackle climate emergency, reverse ecological collapse and deliver and urgent and just transition – with the aim of the North East becoming England’s Greenest Region. It has the support of LEPs, Universities, the Chamber of Commerce, voluntary sector and leading businesses in the region.

The housing retrofit workstream has met three times and is overseen by a high-level group chaired by NHC Chair Paul Fiddaman.  The group have agreed a Statement of Intent aiming to ensure all the region’s homes reach EPC C by 2030. Work is now underway to implement the group’s emerging Delivery Plan.  A parallel group led by Constructing Excellence North East is looking at new-build development of all types and close links are being formed between the two workstreams.

NEECCo will launch officially in the coming weeks, and NHC members in the North East can expect to hear lots more about the Coalition in the run-up to the COP Summit in Glasgow later this year. For information on the NEECCo retrofit work being supported by the NHC, contact Anna Seddon – anna.seddon@northern-consortium.org.uk

NHC meet the minister

| |by

As part of our efforts to influence housing decarbonisation plans, NHC Chair Paul Fiddaman and CEO Tracy Harrison met with Climate Change Minister Lord Callanan earlier this month.  A former MEP and local councillor in Tyne and Wear, Lord Callanan is now a minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The meeting was arranged to discuss the green home upgrade plans the NHC has worked with IPPR North to develop. The NHC emphasised the opportunity that exists for the North’s housing sector to deliver on two of Government’s top priorities: levelling-up and net zero, with potential for 77,000 jobs across the North by 2035. Lord Callanan was joined by senior officials leading the development of the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund.  The meeting also covered skills and the resources the social housing sector can bring to bear with the right support from Government.

Commenting, NHC Chief Executive Tracy Harrison said, “The Minister clearly understood our case and we were pleased to further build on our dialogue with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It is clear that much will rest on the multi-year Spending Review expected later this year. We will continue to make the case for a front-loaded social housing decarbonisation fund that would enable the North to deliver at scale and pace.”

To discuss the Northern Powerhomes report, or our engagement on levelling-up and net zero, please contact Brian Robson (Executive Director – Policy & Public Affairs) brian.robson@northern-consortium.org.uk

Mediaworks scoops Third Sector website gong for transformational Home Group project 

| |by

Future facing digital marketing agency, Mediaworks is celebrating after its work for one of the UKs biggest housing groups was named as one of the best new websites.

The prestigious UK Dev Awards 2021 has named Home Group’s new website as the best Third Sector website in the last 12 months. Mediaworks developed a site that aimed to digitally transform the volume of physical calls into Home Group’s contact centre, driving enquiries online and enabling the group to prioritise its most vulnerable and most urgent queries. Home Group is one of the UK’s largest social housing and care providers.

The resulting digital approach saw an incredible 486% year on year uplift in Home Group’s customer interaction with its online repairs section, an 82% increase in customer satisfaction feedback on the usefulness of its site and, crucially, more than a third of its customers switch from call centre contact to online contact with the launch of the new site.

Brett Jacobson, CEO and founder at Mediaworks said: “I’m thrilled for the full team, both at Mediaworks and at Home Group, who drove this transformational digital project. It was an extensive and detailed piece of work that underlines our dedication to delivering great work in true partnership.

“Knowing the new site has driven real behavioural change for Home Group’s customers shows that our focus on delivering data-driven, innovative solutions that create measurably successful performance for our own clients is the right one.”

Jo Hamilton, Head of Digital at Home Group said: “Our new website has become so much more than a shop window. This has helped our colleagues across the UK to engage with us in a quicker manner which, in turn, enables us to get to the root of their issues far more efficiently.

“For us, that was the most rewarding part of this project in partnership with Mediaworks, but this award win gives everyone a sense of pride that its approach has been recognised as truly transformational within the Third Sector.”

“Mediaworks is a fantastic partner to consult with. Their breadth of expertise and design with a data-led approach allowed us to better guide our customers towards self-serve methods. “This was a strategically-significant investment for Home Group. The project set out to relaunch our online experience to encourage our stakeholders to adopt our digital channels and prioritise high-volume enquiries so they could easily be found through online search and answered through an intuitive experience.”

Summarising the entry, judges from the UK Dev Awards said: “We were really impressed with the website solution. The whole process was extremely valuable, from user research to business objectives, and shows a clear connection between user experience and tech.”

Mediaworks now delivers a range of digital services, including a full complement of performance marketing services, brand strategy, and digital transformation across four UK sites. In the last 12 months, Mediaworks has picked up national and international digital marketing briefs from the likes of Johnnie Johnson, Believe Housing and St Modwens in addition to household name such as Cath Kidston, Dune London, Johnson & Johnson, Miele and LADbible Group.

NHC’s Brief Guide to the Levelling Up Fund

| |by

The Levelling Up Fund prospectus was published with the Budget on 3 March.  It will invest £4.8 billion in high value local infrastructure.

Here are the 10 key things you need to know about the Fund:

  • UK-wide -The Fund is UK-wide but intended for places that need it the most such as ex-industrial areas, deprived towns and coastal communities.
  • Places’ Categorisation – places have been categorised as 1, 2, or 3, with category 1 representing places with the highest levels of identified need.
  • Cross-department – The Fund brings together the Department for Transport, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Treasury and each phase of funding will priorities a range of projects across departments.
  • Treasury Green Book Review – Project appraisal will incorporate the revised approach of the Green Book announced at Budget 2020 to “make sure that government investment spreads opportunity across the UK.” The revised Green Book contains new guidance on place-based analysis.
  • Shovel-ready – The first round of the Fund closes for bids in June and will prioritise bids that can demonstrate investment or begin delivery on the ground in the 2021-22 financial year. All funding provided from the Fund to be spent by 31 March 2024, and, exceptionally, into 2024-25 for larger schemes. There will be future opportunities to bid in subsequent rounds.
  • Competitive Bidding – The Levelling Up Fund is a competitive fund and bids will be prioritised that can demonstrate investment or begin delivery on the ground in the coming financial year. The 2020 Spending Review allocated up to £600 million in 2021-22.
  • Local Authority role – Funding will be delivered through local authorities and every local authority can submit at least one bid for projects that require up to £20m of funding.
  • Capacity funding – A flat £125,000 of capacity funding will be allocated to all eligible local authorities – defined in the prospectus as those most in need of levelling up as identified in the place index – to support bids for later rounds of the Fund. Local authorities will not be able to use the capacity funding in time to support bids for the first round.
  • Members of Parliament – Local MPs will back one bid that they see as a priority – local authorities can submit one bid for every MP whose constituency lies wholly within their boundary. The prospectus states that such support from local MPs is not a necessary condition for a successful bid, however, it is clear from the prospectus that this will be an important factor.
  • Prioritisation of Places – the Government published the methodology note on 11th March confirming that low productivity and long commutes to work were prioritised, rather than wider measures of deprivation such as those used for the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

 

You can read a more in depth breakdown in our full and free report at THIS LINK. Follow @NHC to keep up to date with the leading issues in the housing sector.

Thirteen’s experiences since the roll out of Universal Credit

| |by

Susan Borrow, Care and Support Manager (contracts) at Thirteen, reflects on Thirteen’s experiences since the roll out of Universal Credit, the measures we’ve put in place and investments we’ve made to ensure tenants have been able to manage their claims and maintain their tenancies.

Universal Credit (UC) has been with us in the Tees Valley for a few years now. Hartlepool was the first of our local authority areas to move onto the new benefit, and we’ve since helped thousands of our customers through the process of claiming UC for the first time.

A key element of the move from legacy benefits to UC was that housing costs would be paid direct to customers as part of one monthly payment, rather than direct to landlords – which posed a financial risk to social landlords. 

 Our data tells us that 10,332 of our current customers have transitioned to UC; 2,926 in Hartlepool, 3,358 in Middlesbrough, 3,372 in Stockton and 676 in other areas.

 To start with, the average rent arrears increase being incurred by each of our customers transitioning to UC was £200. Since we’ve had a team in place, customers average rent arrears confirmed on the UC claim date decrease by approximately £53 by the UC payment date.

Since April 2019, our UC Team has:

  • Supported 6516 customers with new and existing UC claims
  • Helped customers access over £2.8million in UC and £1.1 million in other benefits
  • Secured £57,000 in grants for customers

 

So how have we achieved this?

Along with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), councils and housing providers across the North East, we went straight into learning mode, forming working groups to share information and experiences, all working together and giving our customers the best support we could.

We also organised the region’s first UC conferences in 2018 for other housing associations, local authorities and other agencies to share our learnings. These were attended by more than 300 staff from 80 organisations.

We found that providing the right support for people claiming UC was essential to make sure things worked for customers, with some really positive outcomes. We did come across issues in the early days; claiming was complicated, many people found the online application hard to fill in, it was taking longer than expected for customers to get their payments and, since everyone’s personal situations are different, claims would bring up issues we hadn’t seen before. Customers were also naturally worried about how they would manage with the wait for the first payment.

We learned from the roll-out in Hartlepool that having the right support was the biggest factor in making UC work for people. So, in advance of Stockton and Middlesbrough moving to the full digital UC service in 2018, we recruited a team of 16 colleagues dedicated to working with customers from the time they made their claim to the time their first payment came in.

With backgrounds in benefits, rents and money advice and expertise in Universal Credit, the team helped nearly 3,000 customers in their first year. The team provides a one-to-one support package to customers as they newly transition onto UC, and also helps existing claimants if they have a change in circumstances.

A key element of this is managing and responding to rent verifications via the Government portal and making sure we contact customers to offer support as a preventative measure. The support we offer is tailored to the individual because we know one size doesn’t fit all.

We help customers get their claim right so that they’re getting everything they’re entitled to, and empower them so that they fully understand the UC process and payment arrangements. As well as supporting customers from their initial claim date through to payment date, the team also offers advice with issues around historical benefits, helping make sure they’re getting all of the other benefits they might be entitled to, as well as any grant funding they might be eligible for. Any customers needing UC support after their first payment date can access further help through our Money Advice Team. 

 We also look at options to help customers get by during the wait for their first payment, and work with lots of other agencies and charities to make sure people can eat, heat their homes and support them to manage on an often really limited budget.

Pre-pandemic, the team was co-located in every Jobcentre Plus in the Tees Valley, working directly with the DWP to make sure claims were processed correctly. When the first Covid-19 lockdown was announced in March 2020, colleagues began working from home. We had the technology, the right kit and lots of wellbeing support in place to allow them to do this safely while maintaining a continuity of service for customers. We’re so very proud of the way the whole team embraced this when going into completely unknown territory.

Help doesn’t just stop once the first payment is made, either. Thirteen invests heavily in all kinds of support to provide a comprehensive, wrap around service. Once the UC team has done its part, customers can still get help from our money advice officers, more intensive, floating support is available if they need it, and all of our customers have access to support with jobs and training from our employability service.

In recent months, we’ve really focused on improving the overall experience for customers by introducing an online appointment booking system, along with extended availability and operating hours. We’ve utilised Voicescape to contact customers and the appointment booking is managed by our touchpoint call centre colleagues. This has given us a 92% success rate in customer contact and brought efficiencies in the UC team, giving them more time to spend speaking to customers, rather than making repeat calls to try and make appointments.

 

Community resilience

Looking forward, the next stage in the roll-out of UC is managed migration, when other customers will receive their notice of legacy benefits ending and the need to claim UC instead. While this has been suspended due to the pandemic, we will absolutely make sure that the customers who need support receive it from us when the time comes.

We’re also developing a toolkit of resources that will be available to empower our communities. The aim is that as well as providing our one-to-one support, the toolkit will help local people become more confident and skilled at managing their finances.

People are very resilient in lots of ways, and let’s face it, we’ve all had to be especially so over the last ten months, but we’ve found that this doesn’t always translate into financial resilience. We really want this toolkit to work for customers to help them feel more in control and feel empowered to manage not just their tenancies more confidently, but other areas of their finances too.

Universal Credit – Your Homes Newcastle Perspective

| |by

Newcastle upon Tyne was one of the first areas where Universal Credit was introduced, and Your Homes Newcastle have been managing its impact for 6 years. We have seen the progress of roll-out, from minor tweaks around the edges, to significant overhauls in IT systems and legislation. We are now in a position to reflect on how much Universal Credit has changed the way we approach rent collection, and the need to provide support to enable customers to manage their household finances and sustain their tenancies.

In advance of Universal Credit roll out, we had already established the impact Welfare Reform was likely to have on our customers and our ability to recover rent. Moving away from a generic housing officer role, we created Income Officers to work exclusively with current tenants. This allowed us to effectively manage the impact of changes such as the Bedroom Tax and Benefit Cap and proved vital to allowing us to effectively deal with Universal Credit when it did (eventually!) come around.

Initially we created a new project team of a select number of officers to manage Universal Credit roll out. This approach was beneficial to us in the long term. By having a team who were solely dedicated to UC, we were able to identify the challenges posed by the benefit and what changes would need to be made to systems and processes once numbers really ramped up. We also developed great local connections with the DWP and were able to co-locate staff in Jobcentres. This specialist project ran for over 3 years at an additional cost to the business but was essential to influencing how we needed to approach UC.

Our team recognise the importance of early intervention when customers move onto UC or experience a change of circumstances whilst in receipt of the benefit. Whilst labour intensive, it has always felt the right level of support to offer. Although we’ve been getting to grips with it for years, we always have to remember that very often it is a customer’s first experience of claiming benefit and as a landlord we can support them through the process. From September 2019 we rolled out a new Financial Inclusion Team to work within our Income service. This has ensured we have a resource to support customers where issues may have arisen with their claim or they’ve seen a drop in income. It also builds on the early work we did around getting to grips legislation. Having a resource which can quickly respond to key changes to Universal Credit means we are on the front foot and able to identify customers affected. Our Income Officer role has also changed, making the most of technology to ensure we are targeting the right customer groups, freeing up officer time to focus on maximising engagement with hard to reach customers. Our current annual expenditure on staffing and resources to manage Universal Credit is just over £120,000.

Although Covid-19 has been challenging for our customers, we are confident that the changes we made as UC rolled out, with a greater emphasis on maximising engagement and providing support, have put us in the strongest position to manage it’s impact. We have moved less cases through the escalation process towards eviction, and seen improved levels of rent collection and sustainment.

Changes to the New Homes Bonus – we want your views

| |by

The Government is consulting on potential changes to the New Homes Bonus.  The NHC will be responding to the consultation as part of our efforts to make housing policy work for the North, and we’d like to hear member views.

The New Homes Bonus was introduced in 2011 as part of the Coalition government’s localism initiatives, and was intended to reward and incentivise housing growth.  It has been subject to change since it was introduced, and now Government has launched a consultation proposing a number of options for further change, these are around:

  • How housing growth is measured and rewarded by the Bonus
  • The potential for the Bonus to be utilised to support infrastructure in areas with low land values
  • Using the Bonus to incentivise use of modern methods of construction
  • Potential to require an up-to-date local plan in order to receive the Bonus.

The consultation can be accessed here, and a summary list of questions being posed by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government is also available.

The NHC would welcome member views on the proposals in the consultation. Whilst our local authority members would be most directly affected by changes to the Bonus, we recognise that housing associations, ALMOs and combined authorities may also have views they wish to contribute.  Karen Brown (Senior Policy Advisor) is coordinating our response. She can be contacted at karen.brown@northern-consortium.org.uk or on 0191 566 1021.   Please ensure comments reach Karen by 26th March so that they can be considered as part of our response.

Decent Homes Review – update

| |by

The NHC is a core participant in the Sounding Board for Government’s Review of the Decent Homes Standard. The Review is now underway, and the Sounding Board met for the first time in February.

MHCLG are running the Review in two phases – the first phase, running over Spring and Summer, is considering the case for change to the existing criteria.  Subject to the outcomes of the first phase, a second phase will then seek to redefine decency.

In January, the NHC launched a survey of members asking for views on the current standard. Many thanks to members from councils, housing associations and ALMOs across the North who completed our survey.

The first meeting of the Sounding Board considered the current statutory minimum standard for housing. In our contributions at the meeting and in writing, the NHC has been keen to make the following points on the statutory minimum:

  • That the Decent Homes Standard should maintain a read-across to the private rented sector: while the focus of the Review is the social housing sector, it is important that the aspiration for private rented homes to reach the standard is not abandoned, particularly where the PRS is home to households with vulnerabilities 
  • The importance of aligning the Standard with other aspects of legislation and regulation: for example, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act; and the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards set by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy 
  • The challenges in using a rating system to set a minimum standard : members responding to our survey felt that the use of the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) resulted in a standard which manages to be both technical and subjective, and is therefore particularly difficult for tenants to interpret. It should be noted the HHSRS is itself subject to a separate review process at present, and the outcomes of this review will need to be considered carefully as part of the Decent Homes Review.

The next meeting of the Sounding Board Group, in April, will consider the ‘Reasonable State of Repair’ Criterion, with further meetings planned in June on the Modern Facilities and Services Criterion ; and in August on the Thermal Comfort Criterion.

We still welcome views and comments from NHC members on the Review – please contact Executive Director (Policy and Public Affairs) Brian Robson – brian.robson@northern-consortium.org.uk

Members can also register with MHCLG to receive papers and updates related to the Review. Details of how to do this can be found on the MHCLG website.

Northern Housing Consortium Universal Credit – Resources Report Published

| |by

The current health crisis has had a significant impact on employment levels across the north. This has had a knock-on effect on the welfare system with one-third of claims to Universal Credit since it’s roll out being made during the pandemic. The Government has offered low-income families the lifeline of the £20 uplift in Universal Credit which has made a real difference to those struggling with the effects of Covid-19 but there are still issues that impact claimants and are of concern to our members. Other agencies that may usually provide support through the claim process and financial hardship such as Citizens Advice Bureaux can no longer offer face to face support and housing provider and local authority caseloads are increasing.

Northern Housing Consortium’s investigation into the impact of Universal Credit has hitherto been concentrated on collecting insights into how our members’ tenants and residents have been affected by the implementation of the new benefit system. However, the ramifications of UC are not limited to claimants and anecdotal evidence collected through our regular roundtable events which bring together our members and Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) colleagues, suggested that landlords and those organisations that provide support to claimants were facing increased demands for their services and therefore suffering financial stress.

In summer 2019 NHC surveyed members on how UC was impacting them both financially and structurally. While this report is mainly the result of a survey of NHC’s full members carried out prior to the current pandemic on the pressures on their resources directly because of the implementation of UC, it highlights issues still current for our members and in light of the Coronavirus outbreak, we re-surveyed members to collect information on the impact the outbreak has had on their resources. This report comes at a time when housing providers are having to review their spending over the coming months due to severe pressure on budgets because of the Coronavirus pandemic and builds on the previous research on the impact of UC on tenants.

Read the full report.

Thirteen’s experiences since the roll out of Universal Credit

Universal Credit – Your Homes Newcastle Perspective

Select committee recovery report cites NHC evidence

| |by

An influential House of Commons committee has cited the NHC’s evidence on net zero and levelling up three times in their latest report on ‘greening the recovery’.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee, chaired by Conservative MP Phillip Dunne, published their latest report Growing back better: putting nature and net zero at the heart of the economic recovery on 17th February. It sets out how the Government can ‘grow back better’ after Covid-19.

The Committee cites the NHC’s evidence on how making a long-term investment in housing retrofit could help the Government to deliver on net zero and levelling-up, and our recommendations around creating a long-term retrofit funding programme that would enable social housing providers to invest at scale.

The report notes that “Some submissions identified specific opportunities where green measures could help to rebalance the UK; both between north and south and between urban and rural communities. The Northern Housing Consortium said that a programme of improving existing homes in the North to increase their energy efficiency ‘would not only reduce carbon emissions and improve living standards, but also create new skills and employment opportunities in the region.’ It pointed out that the North’s existing homes ‘are older and colder than the English average’ with 833,000 households across the North living in fuel poverty. It said that the ‘labour-intensive nature of improving the energy performance’ of housing stock could be used to contribute to the economic recovery of the North”

The report also notes the NHC’s evidence in relation to the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund : “[The NHC] said the Green Homes Grant scheme was a welcome development but urged the ‘Government to open up the full £3.8bn Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund outlined in the Conservative Manifesto to enable social housing providers to invest at scale.”

The report recommends to Government “that the Green Homes Grant is urgently overhauled and extended to provide a long-term stimulus to the domestic energy efficiency sector.”.  The Committee have also called for a reduction in the rate of VAT applied to home renovations.  The Government has until

Commenting, NHC Executive Director (Policy and Public Affairs) Brian Robson said “It’s great to see our evidence cited by the Committee, and particularly in a way that reflects the potential of domestic retrofit to deliver on the Government’s commitments around net zero and levelling-up. We agree with the Committee that a long-term stimulus is required : we think that’s exactly what the social housing decarbonisation fund can provide.”

The Committee’s report and recommendations can be read in full here. Government has until April 17th to respond to the Committtee’s report.  The NHC have also submitted written and oral evidence to the Committee’s Inquiry on Energy Efficiency of Existing Homes, which is ongoing.