Agenda item - Chairs Communications

63.1    The Chair stated the following:

          “Firstly, May I wish you all very happy New year.

On a sadder note, late in 2017 we lost some dear friends and colleagues who I would like us to pay our respects to.

Anne Ewings was actively involved in Resident Involvement, passionate and popular, liked by staff and residents alike.  Anne was one of the friends of Queens Park and involved in many local community activities and will be missed.

Becky Purnell was the manager of the Resident Involvement team for the last 6 years and had many years of working across the Tarner area of the city in community development. Becky’s kindness, inclusive approach and passion for tenant and community involvement will be sadly missed by staff and residents.

Neil Tideswell was a member of Tenant Disability network for some years and an active member of Resident Involvement at his association at Ingram Crescent and across the city.”

(At this point the Committee held a minute’s silence. Members also remembered former councillor Brian Pidgeon who had recently passed away).

Looking forward, we already have a busy schedule for 2018 and are starting off on a very positive note, with families starting to move into our new council homes at Kite Place andBrookmead, our new Extra Care Scheme. We have 57 new homes at Kite Place and 45 extra care flats at Brookmead.

We are looking to build on our success in providing new homes for the city with our Living Wage Joint Venture with Hyde Housing and we are looking forward to working together to start work on the three identified sites. In addition we are beginning work to look at how we may provide responsive repairs and capital works in the future. We will be working with tenants and leaseholders and ward councillors over the coming months to ensure their views are at the heart of the decisions we make, as to how we provide repairs and major works in the future.

With the agreement of this committee we have launched additional and selective licensing in wards in the city. There is much work to be done to launch the schemes and to ensure that standards of private sector housing in the city improve.   

Looking back to 2017, we have seen consistent good performance within the housing service, with some really positive feedback from our customers. Housing Needs have come in the top 5 for compliments across the council for the second time in a row. Our performance in many areas was exceptional, including in collection of rent where we are one of the highest performing councils in the country. We need to work hard to help and support our tenants through further changes to the benefit system, including the introduction of Universal Credit in the city. We need to ensure that tenants have access to information and support to enable them to navigate the system to continue to pay their rent. 

As part of my back to the floor programme, I have been shadowing housing staff across the wide range of council housing services. I have spent time with our housing customer services team, and housing officers at the local housing offices; housing options staff and the private rented housing team. I was pleased to see the work that our staff were doing and hear of the ideas they had to continually improve the services tenants receive.

Looking forward, you will be aware of Brighton and Hove Independent Mediation service and some of the fantastic work they do to help resolve neighbour disputes which is a huge benefit to the council and the city.

BHIMS is a charity that offers a range of mediation and conflict resolution services to those who find themselves in conflict with their neighbours, work colleagues or family.

BHIMS have been awarded a small grant to make a short film to promote the use of mediation which is something that we would want to support and also make use of. The housing service wants to encourage more people to take up mediation and conflict coaching and this film should raise awareness of the help on offer.