Issue - meetings

Councillor Sue Nicholls said that Overview and Scrutiny Committee had expressed a wish to review and scrutinise the effectiveness of communications between housing associations (sometimes also called registered housing providers), their tenants, elected Members and Council Officers.

Councillor Nicholls said that the committee recognised that there were different practices across different housing associations which sometimes made it difficult for Members and Council Officers to work with housing associations to resolve issues for residents.

Councillor Nicholls said that some housing associations already had excellent communication with residents, elected Members and the council, and it was an ambition that this was the case for all residents. She said that the report outlined a proposed programme of work for the Overview and Scrutiny to help identify and make recommendations in this area, to highlight potential improvements and to share best practice.

Councillor Nicholls explained that the scrutiny exercise sought to examine how registered housing providers operated within East Herts, communicated with their customer and with the council. The aims were to identify areas for improvement by housing associations and/or the council, examples of best practice that could be shared among housing associations, potential issues for lobbying national bodies such as regulators or government to improve housing association communications.

Councillor Nicholls said that a project plan had been developed to deliver these aims, and this document could be seen at Appendix A. She set out in detail the proposed timeline for this area of work and said that a draft of the proposed questionnaire was shared at Appendix B.

Members were advised that a task and finish group would be established of Overview and Scrutiny Members to consider feedback from questionnaires. The Task and Finish Group could request further information from housing associations and would meet between September and December 2025.

Councillor Nicholls said that she hoped that Members would be satisfied, as she was, with the proposed plan of work to make recommendations for improvements in this area. She therefore requested that the Overview and Scrutiny Committee support the review as outlined in the report and project plan and agree to the establishment of a Task and Finish Group to progress this work.

Councillor Swainston welcomed the ideas set out in the paper and said that most councillors had heard from residents who were not happy that they could not get hold of their housing association or had received responses that were not satisfactory. She said that if Members could improve that situation then that would very valuable.

Councillor Carter said that she agreed that communication was probably the key thing that upset tenants in terms of not getting issues fixed or not being able to speak to the right person.

Councillor Marlow said that communication with housing associations was a very mixed affair. He wondered how this way forward was going to be delivered to the housing associations and what kind of weight it would be given when there was a housing ombudsman service and the regulator for social housing. He commented  ...  view the full minutes text for item 152