Agenda item

Committee received an officers update on Islington Council’s plan to address Damp and Mould from Islington’s Director Housing Needs and Strategy and the following points were highlighted:

·       Meeting was advised of the progress made to date on the damp, condensation and mould programme that was established in November 2022.

·       Going forward, the Council now encourages its tenants to raise concerns working alongside a proactive staff. Residents are now shown how to identify and report these issues, what steps the Council will and can take when reported and when tasks will be completed.

·       The Council is learning from complaints and resident feedback which will help to improve its performances especially in instances where damp and mould reappear and not appropriately resolved. Islington Council will now have a rolling process to review complaints, assess what went wrong and as a result make changes where needed to policies, procedures and staff behaviour.

·       In 2022/2023, the Council also engaged in wider resident and partnership activity which has resulted in creating a Tenants Charter and Tenant empowerment framework, private rented sector charter.

·       In the final quarter of 2022, the council conducted 22 community drop-in sessions across Islington to discuss with residents a number of issues such as cost of living crisis, damp and mould etc.

·       The Director highlighted a number of cases of maladministration considered by the Housing Ombudsman in the report noting the various actions taken by the Council which included compensation being paid.

·       Meeting was informed of the 5 point plan to address the damp, condensation and mould issues which includes reviewing all damp and mould cases from the last three years; investing an extra £1m every year specifically for a new damp and mould action team; training non-specialist staff to be able to identify damp and mould when visiting homes; managing a dedicated line for calls from council tenants and working closely with other local partner agencies to provide joined-up help and support to residents.

·       In addition to the above, the Director stated that a framework has been designed in collaboration with partnership services setting out the Council’s approach to damp condensation and mould and communicating and its zero tolerance approach to interventions. The framework sets out three categories to respond to this approach, urgent which would receive an immediate response, tenancy and property audit which will involve proactive interventions and every visit counts which is a comprehensive approach.

·       The Director reiterated the Meet the Housing Ombudsman 30^th March 2023 to be held in the Council Chamber, an opportunity to allow the Housing Ombudsman to explain to the tenants of Islington Council the work of the Ombudsman, noting that Islington Council is the first London Council to participate in this work.

·       In terms of monitoring and KPI’s, the Director noted that although this is a complex and broad programme, officers are working on KPI’s going forward noting that the Service is looking at two levels of measure, the first being an ongoing measurement of success that goes well beyond the current programme of works which indicates how many cases are coming in and how well it has been addressed.
Meeting was advised that another measure in line with expected government regulation regarding response times of social housing providers will be brought to committee in due course.

·       On the remote technology to address damp and mould the Director acknowledged of a number of pilots being carried out on some of the sites which will be analysed so as to ascertain its effectiveness.

·       On the issue of housing disrepair cases and compensation claims which tenants were being subjected to it was agreed that communications to tenants and in particular vulnerable tenants will need to be robust, encouraging tenants to avoid the pitfalls of using the services of ambulance chasing legal firms who promise compensation as the only way of addressing damp and mould is to notify the Council itself directly.

·       Member suggested that beside leafletting tenants to communicate with tenants, officers should use the TRA’s and Estate Manager to highlight what the Council is doing on this issue, highlighting the available process.

RESOLVED:
That the Committee will receive an update in the next 6 months