25 innovative projects across the country are to benefit from a £1.2 million cash windfall, as part of a package of grants to encourage innovation and good practice in housing. The grants have been awarded under the Housing Corporation's Innovation and Good Practice (IGP) programme.
One of the projects benefiting from this cash injection to support the work of housing associations is Opening Doors, which is aimed at helping housing associations meet the housing needs of refugees, asylum seekers and other new migrant communities. The project has the support of key government departments, and will be led by the Chartered Institute of Housing and Housing Association Charitable Trust.
Other projects to benefit will include:
Resolving Landlord and Tenant Group Disputes project
Solving disputes between landlords and tenants is never easy. This project aims to tackle the problem through the development of a good practice toolkit offering solutions for handling disputes. It will look at the alternative routes available for solving disputes, such as using the Independent Housing Ombudsman. The Tenant Participation Advisory Service is developing this project.
The impact of shared supported living and mixed needs groups
When is shared supported living the best housing solution for vulnerable people? Research led by Carr-Gomm will seek to answer this question and provide a strong evidence base for future service planning and commissioning, which will deliver housing that increases the wellbeing of vulnerable people.
Raising the Stakes - promoting extra care sheltered housing
Extra care housing is becoming increasingly popular as a way of keeping frail older people active within the community. There is not, however, enough knowledge available on best practice and services. This project will provide easily accessible information and useful tools for both service users and providers.
Disability Equality Strategy
For disabled housing association residents, gaining access to services and information can sometimes be difficult. This project aims to create a good practice guide for housing associations on how to best meet the varying needs of their disabled customers.
Respect Standard Targets Landlords
The importance of strong housing management in tackling anti-social behaviour in creating a community culture of respect is at the centre of the new standard, aimed at council and housing association landlords (see below).
The Respect Standard was launched, outlining the core components essential to delivering an effective response to anti-social behaviour and building stronger communities, such as accountability, leadership, greater resident empowerment, and supporting community efforts at tackling anti-social behaviour.
Housing Minister, Baroness Andrews, said the new Standard draws on best practice already generated by social landlords and their partners during the last few years:
"A culture of respect is central to many of the things we seek to achieve in creating better places where people can thrive. The Standard creates a clear opportunity for landlords, tenants and the community to work together to ensure this can be attained. Those landlords who have already acted as trailblazers have set a high standard for others to aim for and in order to ensure that every community is free from antisocial behaviour and all its ill-effects, all landlords can play a key role."
The Government's Co-ordinator for Respect, Louise Casey, stressed the importance of landlords signing up to the new Standard:
"Strong housing management where landlords take swift action to tackle anti-social behaviour can make a real difference to tenants and the wider community. Tenants should expect their landlords to protect them from unacceptable behaviour. Signing up to this new standard demonstrates a commitment to this. It sends a clear signal that they will work to uphold certain standards of behaviour, to the benefit of all."
Publication of the Respect Standard for housing management follows extensive public consultation including a written consultation paper and a programme of regional consultation events. Two documents have been published on the Department for Communities and Local Government Web-site - a Guide for Landlords and a Guide for the Public.
The Standard is built around six core commitments:
Accountability, leadership, and commitment: Landlords need to make a visible commitment to the community so that everyone is clear they take issues of anti-social behaviour and respect seriously and will deliver what they say they will.
Empowering and reassuring residents: Landlords and the community need to work as one, with increased resident involvement including in decision making. Engagement and effective communications act to reassure and empower communities.
Prevention and early intervention: Landlords can play a key role in preventing anti-social behaviour from occurring. Where it does occur, if problems are addressed quickly this often gets the best results.
Tailored services for residents and provision of support for victims and witnesses: Success rests on people being prepared to report and then give support to agencies taking action. Every case and every person deserves a robust, tailored and sensitive response.
Protecting Communities through swift enforcement: Government has provided landlords with the tools they need to tackle a whole range of anti-social behaviour. Landlords need to understand how tools work and be prepared to use them quickly to protect communities.
Support to tackle the causes of anti-social behaviour: Provision of support can put an end to unacceptable behaviour by tackling underlying causes. This leads to sustainable outcomes and gets people's lives back on track.
This is the second of a number of articles to be featured in coming months, in which we invite RSLs and local authorities that have attained three-star ratings from the Audit Commission to discuss the inspection process and its implications. This article features Bolton Council, which was awarded three stars for its Supporting People programme.
Since being awarded the maximum three stars in the Audit Commission's inspection, Bolton's Supporting People programme has been hailed as an example of best practice in service user involvement.
The inspector's report highlighted this work and commented, "Service users are involved with the programme in a meaningful, imaginative and inclusive way."
The programme has established the Community Experts Panel, made up of current and former service users. It has been running for little more than 12 months but has already made a definite impact on the development of the programme.
So far, the panel have had fun helping devise a new leaflet which outlines what the SP programme is all about, making it more accessible to potential clients by using clear, jargon-free language and pictures.
Through a range of consultation techniques including discussion, drama and role-play, the panel - made up of young people who found themselves homeless, those in sheltered housing, etc. - has suggested a variety of ways to improve the service further.
Bolton Council's Assistant Director of Adult Services, Andrew Kilpatrick, said: "The future of the service is all about getting service users more involved in shaping service provision and ensuring that services are accessible and meeting local need.
"The programme also needs to be in a better position to monitor performance so we can assess the impact of the service on the lives of vulnerable people."
As a result of enquiries from other local authorities, the Bolton programme hosted a Best Practice Show Case event at the Bolton Arena in July. This featured workshops on service user involvement plus governance, contract and financial management, and the process of preparing for inspections by working 12 months ahead to focus on each of the inspections' 'Key Lines of Enquiry'.
Andrew added: "The event was attended by 40 local authorities who were keen to listen, discuss and take away ideas, which could then be adopted by their local programmes."
Bolton's Community Experts Panel is fortunate in that it is representative of the wide mix of Supporting People clients. It aims to consult and involve all client groups, from drug users to older people.
The panel have highlighted the sort of factors that are important to service users which have subsequently been included in the reviews of service providers. Ultimately this means such assessments are now more wide ranging than before.
And now, the SP programme is working to use the panel's expertise, by training members to become peer reviewers for the programme. This means panel members will visit various housing schemes and assist programme staff in assessing the quality of services provided and suggesting where improvements can be made.
Bolton's Supporting People programme is built on a long history of partnership working between Bolton Council, Bolton Primary Care Trust and the Greater Manchester Probation Service. The programme was awarded the maximum three stars in May and described as "excellent" with "excellent prospects to improve".
For further information contact Alison Brown on tel.: 01204 331396
Audit Commission local authority inspection reports released during August 2006 included the following:
Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council (Supporting People)
Two-star good service with promising prospects for improvement.
Congleton Borough Council (Strategic Housing)
Two-star good service with promising prospects for improvement.
Havering London Borough Council (Supporting People)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Lambeth London Borough Council (Private Sector Housing)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council (Stockport ALMO)
Three-star excellent service with excellent prospects for improvement.
Wakefield Metropolitan District Council (Supporting People)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Weymouth & Portland Borough Council (Affordable Housing)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Audit Commission housing association inspection reports released during August 2006 included the following:
1066 Housing Association (Landlord Services)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Charter Community Housing (Landlord Services)
One-star fair service with uncertain prospects for improvement.
Chelmer Housing Partnership (Housing Services)
One-star fair service with promising prospects for improvement.
Riverside Group (Housing Services)
Two-star good service with promising prospects for improvement.
The Housing Corporation launched a suite of reduced, more tenant friendly performance indicators (PIs). The current framework of PIs was introduced in 2001, but has undergone a series of refinements in response to the changing regulatory and policy environment.
The revisions to the existing PI framework follow a consultation, which ended in February 2006. The consultation's aim was to produce new PIs to reduce the burden on housing associations, while highlighting increasingly important areas, particularly tenant involvement and efficiency. The result is the development of fewer, but more focused, PIs that stress quality of service, capturing and qualifying resident perception of landlord services.
The Housing Corporation invited expressions of interest from housing associations to receive funding to set up family intervention projects (FIPs). The invitation followed Housing Corporation Chief Executive Jon Rouse's welcome of FIPs. The Housing Corporation is proposing to provide up to £250,000 from its Innovation and Good Practice (IGP) fund to assist five housing associations set up centres over the next two years.
Referred to in the Government's Respect Action Plan, FIPs work with the perpetrators of nuisance behaviour to challenge and address the underlying issues that they and their families might be experiencing, and prevent them being involved in future anti-social behaviour.