Agenda item

Colin Archer, Director of Development and New Business, Islington and Shoreditch Housing Association was present and made a presentation to the Committee, a copy of which is interleaved.

The Chair circulated a number of questions for consideration by Members in relation to the scrutiny.

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·         ISHA had been operating for 80 years in Islington and the issues were similar to those when it started – poverty, high rents, overcrowding and poor health

·         ISHA had a community/resident focus and is the first Housing Association in Islington to be a LLW employer

·         ISHA has a subsidiary, Lien Vet, which promotes the housing needs for Vietnamese and wider SE communities and provides a landlord service, an outreach and support team, partnership working and an advocacy role

·         ISHA’s largest estate in the borough is St.Mary’s Path and there have been new school developments in New North Academy and St.Jude and St. Pauls school

·         ISHA is developing sites at Zoffany Street, Tufnell Park Road and on the Ashmount school site

·         Shared challenges include providing good quality, truly affordable housing for low waged and poor people given the high house prices and market rents in the borough, land values, reductions in grant, lack of affordable supply and welfare reform

·         There had been a minimum of 41LBI households direct housing benefit cases affected by the bedroom tax, however most people wanted to remain in their property and pay

·         ISHA had introduced ‘speed dating’ where 50 households had exchanged properties. There was a £2500 incentive to assist with moving and there was a good relationship with the HB team. An outreach team assisted to sustain tenancies and this has reduced arrears and evictions

·         The welfare reforms changes were due to impact more severely with the introduction of Universal Credit, frozen or reduced benefit caps, direct payments, 4 week payments in arrears, the need to administer claims digitally

·         ISHA is committed to life time tenancies, new homes at social rent, re-lets at social rent and affordable shared ownership targeted at high priority groups

·         ISHA had in the past utilised intermediate rents rather than shared ownership when the housing market fell in value

·         ISHA adopted space guide lines on the guidance provided by L.B.Waltham Forest which was similar to Parker Morris standards

·         In response to a question it was stated that the vast majority of lettings in the borough were as a result of Council nominations and that ISHA did not have a separate local lettings policy as the vast majority of lettings went to Council nominations

·         It was stated that in terms of preparation for Universal Credit ISHA were offering advice to tenants on budgeting and to avoid pay day lenders and use a credit union

·         Reference was made to the fact that ISHA would be contacting tenants at an early stage if welfare reforms impacted on rent payments

·         Councillor O’Halloran expressed concern at recent problems at Maynard Court with a fire and the resulting repairs and the ISHA representative stated that he was not personally aware of all the details but that he would discuss this with Councillor O’Halloran following the meeting and investigate the problems raised

·         It was stated that the last tenants survey on repairs satisfaction showed a 85% satisfaction rate

·         In relation to inspections it was stated that there was a system of Estate offices and that these were responsible for a ‘patch’, and that inspections were made by them with local estate representatives on a monthly basis

·         With reference to a development in Stroud Green Road and possible problems with this, the ISHA representative stated that ISHA had originally developed this site but it was now managed by Bangla. The ISHA representative indicated that he would investigate the problems if he was informed of them.  However he was personally unaware of any problems and that in fact Bangla were currently in the process of purchasing the property from ISHA

·         The ISHA representative stated that there was a residents forum and 2/3 Members of the ISHA Board were residents, There was also a residents away day and KPI’s were on the website for residents

·         ISHA participated in’ House Mark’, which was a benchmarking scheme for social landlords and ISHA were usually amongst the best performers. Some ‘House Mark’ data was not published as it contained commercially sensitive material

·         In response to a question as to how the energy efficiency of the stock could be improved, it was stated that this was a challenge in Islington, given that a number of properties were in conservation areas. However ISHA were committed to becoming a more green organisation and to tackle fuel poverty. New housing stock was energy efficient and a retro fit was being done on some of the older properties

·         A Member enquired as to the number of properties that ISHA had in shared ownership and it was stated that there were currently 370 properties, which enabled a subsidy to be given. Usually around 30% of properties were sold as shared ownership and there was the ability to sell back the shared ownership to ISHA or sell it on the open market. In the event of the property being sold back to ISHA there was a Panel of 3 valuers who decided on the market value of the property

·         In response to a question on target rents it was stated that there was a complicated formula that was based on the market value of the property and new properties were still being developed at target rents

RESOLVED:

That following discussion by Members of the Committee of a list of supplementary questions, these be circulated to Housing Associations for consideration

The Chair thanked Colin Archer of ISHA for his presentation