Background
Babergh provides the local community with a comprehensive range of housing services, both as a landlord and as a strategic Housing Authority. Housing is one of Babergh’s major services delivering a range of corporate, strategic and front line services, including homelessness, Contact Care and Community Care services. These three latter services are the subject of this Best Value Review and are delivered by the Council's Housing Division.
The Housing Division is one of 12 Divisions within the Authority employing 46 (full time equivalent) staff providing a range of strategic housing services and managing 3,900 homes with an annual turnover in excess of £10 million. The overall strategic aims of the Division are to provide an accountable, effective and efficient value for money, customer focused housing service.
Scope of the Review
The areas of the Housing Service which come within the scope of the Housing Support Best Value Review are as follows:-
Homelessness
The Council’s homelessness service delivers statutory duties to protect people facing actual and threatened homelessness. It includes preventative and advice work as well as short-term homeless emergency services. The review focused on the homelessness service module with particular emphasis on tackling problems arising from the review relating to the Council's Homelessness Reception Centre. Wider homelessness issues will be explored within the Council’s Homelessness Strategy, currently being developed.
Community Care
The Council develops supported housing schemes to ensure that people with special needs are provided with the support and housing they need. The review focused on the Council’s joint planning work with Housing Associations, the joint strategic planning arrangements in place with Suffolk County Council and the Heath Authority and other agencies (both statutory and voluntary). The arrangements being put in place to deliver the “Supporting People” programme have also been considered as part of this review module.
Community Alarm Service (Contact Care)
The provision of Community Alarms to vulnerable people in the community enables more people to stay in their own homes for longer than they may otherwise have been able to. The review includes an appraisal of the contractual arrangements in place regarding Central Control operations and the Council’s overall emergency call-out service and proposals for change following the appraisal are listed in Appendix H, Item 7.
The Best Value Review focused primarily on the Homelessness Module with Community Care and Community Alarms having a ‘lighter touch’. The objectives of the review primarily concern the homelessness module and are as follows:-
Objectives Of The Review
The following eight objectives were the driving forces behind the work undertaken in this Best Value Review:
- To produce an Action Plan which will secure continuous improvement.
- To determine to what extent the Housing Support Services recognises and assists the users of its services.
- To determine the extent to which the aims and objectives of the service are consistent with those of the Council in delivering its overall corporate objectives.
- To assess to what extent Housing Support Services are needed and to challenge why and how the services are provided.
- To establish the current efficiency and effectiveness of Housing Support Services through comparison with other local authorities and service providers.
- To receive information from a recently completed separate management exercise which considered the management arrangements in place at Stour House in Sudbury which is Babergh’s main Homeless Persons Reception Centre.
- To develop a Homelessness Strategy in accordance with new legislation and that this work be developed by the Review Team involved in the Best Value Review and published as a ‘companion’ document.
- To consider the general issues of modernising service delivery (e-government) and customer service.
The Review Process
The report sets out the details of how Babergh's Housing Support Services have been reviewed focusing specifically on outcomes, reached after applying the following key elements of Best Value – Compare, Challenge, Consult and Complete.
The creation of "Challenge Groups" for each module provided the focus for identifying potential improvements. Full details of these are included in the main report.
Consultation exercises included a 10% satisfaction survey sample of all contact care users.
It was felt that existing homeless people would feel compromised if relied upon to talk their satisfaction levels. So while they were included, people who have been homeless in the past were consulted. These people have experienced, in some cases, many months in the Council's Homeless Persons Reception Centre, are now permanently housed, so are in a good position to reflect back on their experience.
Each service area has a lead officer who is responsible for progress in relation to the key tasks set out in the terms of reference.
Recommendations
This Review makes a series of recommendations for service delivery improvements that are set out in the Improvement Plan. This review is intended to feed directly into the Council’s Homelessness Strategy. The Homelessness Act 2002 requires all local authorities to take a more strategic approach to preventing and tackling homelessness based on a review of homelessness in their district every five years. The Homelessness Strategy must be in place by 31st July 2003 and the existing Review Team will undertake the important monitoring and evaluation role to ensure the Council meets all its statutory requirements in this regard.
Staffing Implications
There are no staffing implications flowing from this Best Value Review. The Best Value Review Group who have monitored the progress and outcome of this review, have the additional job of overseeing the development of the Council's Homelessness Strategy. This strategy is still in its early stages so the staffing implications flowing from it are not yet clear.
Financial Implications
The review has identified areas for improvement which forms the Improvement Action Plan. The bulk of these do not require additional funds and can be achieved within existing budgets. The exception is the need to convert Stour House to bring it in line with modern day standards. In line with Committee's approval of the Housing Support Best Value interim report some initial funding has been earmarked to start the Stour House conversion programme in 2003/04 within the new capital programme for that year.
Summary Of The Key Findings
Our challenge and consultation exercises revealed that Stour House, the Council’s main homelessness centre is unpopular, relies too heavily on shared facilities and houses an uncomfortable mix of families and vulnerable single people.
The review recommends that an urgent and full feasibility study be undertaken into the most effective way of creating two separate homelessness centres, one for families and the other, with appropriate support and supervision, for single households.
A separate report on the proposals will be presented to Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 27th January 2004; the details of how this will be developed is shown in Appendix G.
The development of a Homelessness Strategy is to be carried out in accordance with the government’s framework and timetable. Furthermore, that this forms part of the council’s new five year housing strategy for 2004 – 2009 and is submitted jointly to government as part of the 2003 HIP submission.
The increasing problems of supply and demand has had a tangible impact on the length of time homeless families spend in temporary accommodation and this has resulted in a greater reliance on Bed and Breakfast.
In order to meet the government’s commitment of ending the use of Bed and Breakfast for homeless families with children by March 2004, innovative ways of developing new affordable homes and attracting responsible private sector landlords must be sought.
Written information dealing with all aspects of homelessness and homeless prevention methods must be available to clients in order to meet the terms of the Homelessness Act 2002.
The implementation date for the Supporting People Programme is 1st April 2003. Babergh is on progress to meet all the requirements of the programme in full by this date.
The development of Floating Support is an important tool in terms of tenancy sustainment and will ensure that vulnerable people at risk of becoming homeless will be offered vital support to help them gain independence and greater empowerment.
The need to develop a new specification for both the Community Alarm Service and emergency “Out of Hours” operation
The need to prepare a report detailing the right course of action concerning the transfer of the cost of the homeless reception centres service from the Housing Revenue Account to the General Fund
Homelessness prevention work is not actively pursued and this is a key weakness of the service. This will be tackled in the Homelessness Strategy which will be presented to Strategy Committee on 17th July 2003.
Conclusion
The review has identified areas for improvement for which an Improvement Action Plan is proposed. Implementation of this Improvement Plan will ensure that continuous improvement to housing support services is provided. A great deal more work is required to develop a comprehensive homelessness strategy and this process has begun.
Recommendations
The following recommendations were agreed:
- The implementation of the Improvement Action Plan as set out in on Page 36.
- The terms of reference for the Stour House Conversion Group (Appendix G).
- The development of the Homelessness Strategy as detailed in Section 6.
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