The Governor – July 2018

EV pa ID a g E

Fo ur

N C E

na e ly re sis se pu ar ll- ch ou a t nd

HQN’S MAGAZINE FOR BOARDS, EXECUTIVES AND LEADERS

JULY 2018

Bouncing back Barbara Spicer on the turnaround at Plus Dane

Too important to be dismissed out of hand Colin Wiles on the Hackitt Review

A life in 15 questions Beth Watts

Bouncebackability –

the mitigation simulation from HQN The sequel to Iron Grip – Iron Grip covered the stresses – Bouncebackability tests out how you can pull back from the brink – it’s what you need for a more challenging world.

The RSH says that associations are making good headway on stress testing but aren’t so hot at coming up with mitigations that steer away from danger.

Bouncebackability helps you plug that gap in a fun and safe way. It’s great for your board’s away day.

To book a session or to find out more contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197, or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

Contents July 2018

Special pullout: Evidence

Published by:

The latest edition of Evidence magazine incorporating topical housing research and analysis from leading academics.

HQN Rockingham House St Maurice’s Road York YO31 7JA

Issue 20 | July 2018 In this issue: 1 Welcome / Economic success brings housing problems 2 Developing housing and support pathways to meet the accommodation needs of single Veterans 3 Conditionality in welfare system challenged by research 4 WelCond findings: anti-social behaviour / WelCond findings: fixed-term tenancies

Editorial:

EVIDENCE update

THE LATEST RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS – IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Alistair McIntosh Jon Land Jules Birch Janis Bright Colin Wiles Peter Walters

Welcome A world of housing problems confronts us, not least the vexed relationship between demandand supply-side answers. In this edition we look at some issues that epitomise that tension, and some potential solutions.

Around the world some cities and regions are experiencing phenomenal growth. But even in places of high employment, housing problems persist and multiply. Several recently published papers from the US, New Zealand, Ireland and Vietnam discuss the issues and the downsides of some state-sponsored ideas on meeting the need for affordable housing.

In the UK, forces veterans can get a tough deal – some end up homeless. But a niche sector, involving housing associations and others, has developed to meet the need for accommodation and support.

All enquires to: hqn@hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 01904 557150 Design: Sam Wiggle

Printed by the Reliable Print Company, York

Published four times a year. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Janis Bright Editor Evidence

Economic success brings housing problems The problems of providing affordable housing in high growth cities around the world are the subject of several recent research papers.

In a fascinating tour that holds many resonances for the UK, Gabriel Metcalf outlines problems in US cities such as Seattle, Denver, Boston and New York. These cities are growing rapidly and many low and middle income people are being priced out of the existing housing.

Efforts to provide enough social housing in high cost cities are like building ‘sand castles before the tide’, he says.

Assessing four aspects of housing cost – building social housing, ‘vouchers’ (akin to Local Housing Allowance), rent controls and regulation, Metcalf finds obstacles with each. Some of his solutions, including ‘upzoning’ or building at higher density and rethinking minimum standards, may not appeal to a UK audience. But other ideas including better transport to draw less prosperous areas into reach of economically better off ones, new

Email: jon.land@hqnetwork.co.uk Tel: 07740 740417 Advertising:

Researcher Mark Bevan and colleagues researched the sector and what veterans want.

Turning to the demand side, social security benefits are of course a key component in meeting the cost of housing. The Welfare Conditionality project recently reported after its five-year study of conditionality in the system: that’s when certain behavioural requirements are placed on recipients, under threat of sanction for non-compliance.

The six-university team looked at issues including Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, and other benefits. They also considered other forms of conditionality, for example around anti-social behaviour, homelessness and social housing. Their conclusions raise fundamental questions about current policy.

cities, and simply spending more on social housing, are all on the table for debate here too.

In New Zealand, the government has opted for a quasi-market approach to deliver social housing. But, finds Peter Dykes, the reliance on demand-side subsidies to encourage provision is unlikely to succeed.

In Dublin meanwhile, the economic crash and subsequent regrowth have brought a marketised approach to housing that excludes some of the most vulnerable. Rory Hearne and Mary Murphy report on homeless families with children, who are expected to access private rented housing with the help of an assistance payment.

Building of social housing in Ireland has been in longterm decline, intensified after 2008. The private rented sector is now expected to be the primary provider of new social housing.

The homeless families studied were living in emergency accommodation. They were expected to use their Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) to find rented

Cover features 10 Barbara Spicer The ever-effervescent chief executive talks to Jules Birch about the darks days at Plus Dane and how its recent V1 G1 rating feels like vindication for some tough decisions.

JULY 2018 |

EVIDENCE - 1

Also in this issue: 4 What’s changed?

5 The Hackitt Review

Alistair McIntosh argues that every link of the ‘housing chain’ must be stronger if we are to ensure a tragedy like Grenfell never happens again.

Colin Wiles on why Dame Judith’s heavily criticised report into building regulations and fire safety should not be ignored.

8 Accreditation success

15 The last word Former First Wessex chief executive Peter Walters has some words of wisdom for governance professionals and boards.

A profile of Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s in-house contractor following its recent HQN accreditation success.

14 A life in 15 questions Beth Watts, chair of the Housing Studies Association, takes the ‘15 questions’ challenge and provides some revealing answers.

JULY 2018 |

3

What’s changed?

Since Grenfell everyone knows what we do or don’t do. The fire is all over the news and lots of folk worry that the next Grenfell could be on their doorstep. We just can’t let it happen again.

Of course, everyone will agree with me on that as a goal right now.

I fear it could slip down the agenda.

How do we stick to the task?

For a few weeks after the fire a SMART car drove round the blocks near me with some sort of official checking on things. That stopped when we moved onto the next thing.

Now a van blocks the fire brigade gate every night. It’s pathetic. The van driver knows exactly what he is doing. And the council shouldn’t let him do it. The police drive by loads of times every night but never stop.

Plus, it is on the road to the local fire station, so the fire brigade can’t miss it. In fairness the police are working night and day to stem a spate of stabbings. Yes, I know everyone is under the cosh. But still.

Self-interested As I go around I only ever meet good people doing their best. Things do go wrong but not for want of trying.

4

| JULY 2018

Judith Hackitt is not so impressed.

“While conducting this review I have had personal experience of the high level of self-interested advocacy which hampers good independent decision-making in this sector, and gets in the way of much needed progress to a different set of behaviours.”

Hackitt is all about working out what the risks are and coming up with plans to fix them. And she wants named individuals to sort this out. It looks like we need to take a giant leap forwards on the technical front. What makes this tricky is that life does not stand still. We will have new materials and new types of buildings. Why does this matter?

You can make new mistakes when things change. In the past we took out asbestos as it is a killer. But we maybe never found anything quite as good at stopping fires. This is why Hackitt wants a whole systems approach. We must think things through.

An accountant said to me that he just wants the technical people to tell him what is compliant then he will go out and buy it at the best price. On the face of it that sounds OK. But it’s not easy to say what is compliant today and it could get harder in the future. Where is this leading?

Factory homes I think it will drive the push for factory homes. Surely that will make it simpler to ensure the homes are safe. The advocates of these homes always stress that they are precision engineered. But then so are Volkswagens. They might be

“Proving that your homes are safe could be tricky. Will you, yes you, sign them off as safe? Some of you will be asked to put pen to paper” So, what do we need to do differently?

Basic admin must get a lot better.

Why don’t we know what we need to know about our buildings? Who is keeping track of things? We have had a few cases of landlords suddenly finding out about safety flaws. That’s not right. And I really don’t know how it can happen.

After all we have spent a fortune on surveys for decent homes, stock transfers and funders. What has gone wrong there?

great in a crash, but the emissions get you instead. So, there is no silver bullet here. Still my prediction is that factory homes will become the norm. It just feels like an easier way to get consistent standards.

What do we do with the homes we already have? How do we make them safe? Will you, yes you, sign them off as safe? Some of you will be asked to put pen to paper. Proving that your homes are safe could be tricky. It might seem easier to knock them down and put factory homes

in their place. But how do you win support from residents? More often than not regeneration schemes take years to get going. The building is the easy bit. As you know the people side of it is the hardest.

Hackitt tells us to listen to residents.

I’ll bet she is surprised that she has to say this. To her it might just be common sense. So, what has gone wrong in housing? The credit crunch is part of the answer. At the time I did hear a top official say that tenants should just be glad to get a home.

That’s all they’re going to get. Saving money was the order of the day.

Lawyers were summoned to work out how to cut service standards to the bone while staying just inside the law. Services that were about listening to tenants were first to go.

That’s how we lost touch with the front line in some places.

We reap as we sow. If you ignore people, they get angry, especially when they are trying to tell you about things that really matter. They wonder why you won’t listen. And that’s when things go badly wrong.

A few tenants start to suspect there might be skulduggery at play. We’ve all been to places where the tenants and the landlord are at war without a good word to say about each other. Most of the time it could have been nipped in the bud quite easily.

But we are where we are. Landlords need to suck it up. The record shows that you can get the best intel from difficult people. Mind you, it would be better if we didn’t let things get to this point.

The flip side of the coin is that Hackitt says residents will have responsibilities. They must keep their side of the bargain. This includes leaseholders. They’ve got to have the same safety doors, sprinklers and what have you as everyone else.

So, every link of the housing chain needs to be stronger. Executives, councillors and boards must be on top of risk. The technical people have to step up to the plate. And it’s time for a grown-up relationship with residents. That’s how you save lives.

Alistair McIntosh, Chief Executive, HQN

The Hackitt Review – too important to be dismissed out of hand Colin Wiles argues that while Dame Judith Hackitt’s review into building regulations and fire safety is far from perfect, social housing providers would be wrong to ignore its key findings.

The catastrophic fire at Grenfell Tower on 14 June last year killed 72 people and changed the lives of thousands of others for ever.

It was arguably the single most important event in social housing in our lifetime, although the implications extend well beyond our sector.

Three separate investigations have arisen post-Grenfell. The police investigation is examining millions of documents and over 300 companies and individuals. The public inquiry chaired by Sir Martin Moore-Bick opened last September (and new revelations are emerging at each sitting); and the Hackitt Review into building regulations and fire safety published its final report on 17 May 2018.

Disappointment It is fair to say that Dame Judith Hackitt’s report was met with a huge degree of disappointment within the housing and construction sectors, and among campaigners for fire safety, primarily due to its failure to recommend a ban on combustible cladding and desktop cladding tests, but also for the fact that it did not make any prescriptive recommendations about the current Building Regulations.

But it is important to understand the background to the review and the brief that Dame Judith was given.

The government’s terms of reference for the review were to: ‘…urgently assess the effectiveness of current building and fire safety regulations and related compliance and enforcement issues, with a focus on multioccupancy high-rise residential buildings’.

Specifically, the review was tasked to map the current regulatory system, to consider ‘the competencies, duties and balance of responsibilities of key

Grenfell Tower

JULY 2018 |

5

individuals within the system in ensuring that fire safety standards are adhered to’ and to ‘…compare this with other international regulatory systems for buildings and regulatory systems in other sectors with similar safety risks’ and finally ‘to make recommendations that ensure the regulatory system is fit for purpose with a particular focus on multi-occupancy high-rise residential buildings’.

Dame Judith’s background is in chemical engineering and she was chair of the Health and Safety Executive from 2009 to 2016. This background informs the report that has emerged, which is very technical and processdriven. For many critics it is too technical and fails to address the bigger, some would say obvious, issues.

Ignorance and indifference She does, however, provide a detailed and very complex map of how the present system works and she is very critical of the current regulatory framework, which, she says, is characterised by ignorance and indifference.

“The primary motivation is to do things as quickly and cheaply as possible rather than to deliver quality homes which are safe for people to live in. Some of those undertaking building work fail to prioritise safety, using the ambiguity of regulations and guidance to game the system. There is also a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities – there is ambiguity over where responsibility lies, exacerbated by a level of fragmentation within the industry…”

All of this, she says, creates a ‘race to the bottom’ with ‘insufficient focus on delivering the best quality building possible, in order to ensure that residents are safe, and feel safe’.

No doubt many in our sector would agree with this analysis.

Her key proposal is for a new risk-based regulatory framework with a series of independent, mutually reinforcing checks and balances for high-rise buildings (defined as ten storeys and above compared to the current six storeys) requiring detailed checks to be carried out throughout the life cycle of a building, from conception to occupation, with a clear audit trail that would provide reassurance and evidence that a building is safe. The government, she says, must set clear outcome-based requirements for the building safety standards to be achieved. And every building above ten storeys will have a ‘dutyholder’ to ensure it is safe throughout its life cycle.

concerns on re safety where necessary, through an independent statutory body’, a proposal that has been broadly welcomed. You will recall that the frequent warnings made by the Grenfell Action Group about fire safety issues prior to June 2017 appear to have been ignored.

Dame Judith also calls for more rigour in testing building products, describing the present system as disjointed and confusing, although she stops short of asking for a ban on desktop testing, an issue that is being put under the spotlight in the public inquiry with reports of highly dubious methods being used to pass products as safe.

She also recommends that local authority building control departments should be re-branded as ‘Local Authority Building Standards’ with stronger powers and the ability to stop work on site if safety concerns arise.

Builders would have to make reports at every stage of the process with a new Joint Competent Authority (JCA) comprising Local Authority Building Standards, fire and rescue authorities and the Health and Safety Executive to oversee better management of safety risks in these buildings.

Cynical view Taking a cynical view, the whole thrust of the report appears to be that wrapping tall buildings in petrollike cladding is acceptable so long as a rigorous safety regime is in place. A range of bodies ranging from the Royal Institute of British Architects to the Local Government Association immediately lined up to criticise her refusal to call for a ban on combustible cladding.

The Communities Secretary, James Brokenshire, responded quickly to this outcry by announcing a consultation on banning combustible cladding. The Housing Minister, Dominic Raab, went further and said the government has ‘made it very clear that we will

Active participants In addition, residents should be active participants in ‘the ongoing safety of the building and must be recognised by others as having a voice’. The new framework would provide ‘a no-risk route for residents to escalate

6

| JULY 2018

The front cover of the ‘Building a Safer Future’ review

proceed to ban combustible cladding’ and that the consultation was simply to establish ‘the best way to do that’. The sound of Whitehall back-pedalling was palpable.

On 18 June the government issued its consultation on a combustible cladding ban, which states: “We are minded to make the change (ie the ban) through legislation by amending the Building Regulations to include a specific ban. Failure to comply with the ban would be a breach of the Building Regulations 2010.

Those not complying would be open to prosecution in the Magistrates’ Court. The court has powers to impose an unlimited fine.”

Astonishingly, the Government estimates that the annual cost of this policy change would be no more than £11m a year.

Another key issue raised in the Hackitt report is the role of fire assessments. Before the Grenfell fire most assessments were ‘category one’, and looked only at the common parts of buildings rather than cladding and internal walls. Assessments have to be carried out by a ‘competent person’, but the definition of competent was vague and there are many unregistered fire risk assessors. Broadly speaking, landlords can obtain the answer they want by choosing their own assessor. Yet Dame Judith does not recommend any changes to this process and says that the government should decide how to define competent.

A further omission in the report, in the view of many critics, is its failure to offer any prescriptive changes to the current building regulations.

Lakanal Following the inquest into the Lakanal House fire in 2013, the coroner wrote to the then Communities Minister Eric Pickles describing Part B as: “A most difficult document to use. It is recommended that your department review it to ensure it is expressed in words and adopts a format which are intelligible to the wide range of people and bodies engaged in construction.”

Nothing was done.

Dame Judith accepts that Part B is flawed and says it ‘can be ambiguous and inconsistent’ and calls for its language to be clarified, but she is against the regulations being too prescriptive and has a clear preference for outcome based regulations.

“A totally prescriptive system creates an over-reliance on the system by those working within it, discouraging ownership and accountability for decisions,” she says.

But most critics argue that a prescriptive approach, such as an absolute ban on combustible materials and an insistence upon sprinkler installation would be far simpler to understand and easier to regulate than her

Dame Judith Hackitt

convoluted regulatory framework.

So what are the implications of the Hackitt Review for registered providers? In the longer term we shall have to wait and see to what extent the regulatory framework and the building regulations are amended.

But in the short term, any provider with a block that contains combustible cladding should be consulting with residents about its removal, regardless of the cost or the legal issues involved. And every provider should respond to the consultation to show their support for the government’s proposals for an outright ban on combustible cladding.

The public inquiry has also raised serious concerns about the ‘stay put’ policy that has been adopted by most fire authorities, since it clearly failed at Grenfell. You should be looking closely at your fire evacuation procedures and the advice that is provided to residents, and consult with them and fire safety experts about the best approach to take. There are of course dangers involved in a mass evacuation of any block, but those who stayed in their flats at Grenfell (when advised to do so by the emergency services) did not survive.

Above all, boards will need to put safety, and particularly fire safety, at the very top of their agenda, and make sure that residents’ voices are heard in any future discussions and policy changes. The emphasis upon resident involvement in safety issues is one of the strongest and most welcome recommendations emerging from the Hackitt Review.

“Above all, boards will need to put safety, and particularly fire safety, at the very top of their agenda, and make sure that residents’ voices are heard in any future discussions and policy changes”

JULY 2018 |

7

Many congratulations to Rochdale Boroughwide Housing which was recently accredited for its in-house contractor services Lead assessor, Kevin Bentley said: “The accreditation panel examined the reactive repairs and maintenance service delivered by the RBH in-house contractor and was particularly impressed by the strategic approach taken to the expansion and development of the team.

Investment in new technology has driven efficiency, productivity and value for money whilst still achieving high levels of customer satisfaction.

“Work systems and processes are extremely efficient with minimal waste, and a comprehensive performance framework has been implemented. The panel was particularly impressed with the investment made by RBH in training staff at all levels of the organisation to help them to develop their skills and knowledge.”

IT: TOR ACCRCED ONTRAC DLO /

Peter McHugh, DLO Accreditation Project Manager at Rochdale Boroughwide Housing said: “We applied for accreditation as part of our approach to continuous improvement for the responsive and empty property service and found the process both rigorous and challenging. The assessment approach is very useful as it compelled the team to formally document and evidence key information and intelligence in relation to a range of issues. As a result of the application we had, for the first time, all of our performance, business intelligence, financial and resource information in one place which we were able to share with HQN and latterly with the HCA when they completed an in-depth assessment.

“It is also a very effective tool for marshalling the involvement and support of team members and key stakeholders in support services. This has really helped to raise the profile of the repairs service and I would recommend accreditation to other maintenance managers as our experience has been extremely positive. The impact that such a rigorous independent appraisal of the repairs service has upon boards, executive teams and other stakeholders is very powerful and should not be underestimated. Finally, the award is a great compliment for all the staff who work in the service and engenders a great sense of pride and motivation amongst all repair team members.”

Holding the trophy is Gill Stead, Director of Accreditation and Peter McHugh, Responsive Repairs Manager with Aiden Finn, Darren Barker, Andrew Foster, Terry Muldowney, Ralph Hall, Gareth Swarbrick, John McDermott, Chris Dawson, Steve Weatherilt, Leanne Simpson and Cath Owston

HQN accreditation demonstrates that your service has been scrutinised by a reputable independent organisation, meeting exacting standards. It is a measure of confidence that customers and partners recognise and trust. To find out more please contact Anna Pattison on 01904 557197 or anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk

8

| JULY 2018

Issue 20 | July 2018 In this issue: 1 Welcome / Economic success brings housing problems 2 Developing housing and support pathways to meet the accommodation needs of single Veterans 3 Conditionality in welfare system challenged by research 4 WelCond findings: anti-social behaviour / WelCond findings: fixed-term tenancies

EVIDENCE update

THE LATEST RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS – IN PLAIN ENGLISH

Welcome A world of housing problems confronts us, not least the vexed relationship between demandand supply-side answers. In this edition we look at some issues that epitomise that tension, and some potential solutions.

Around the world some cities and regions are experiencing phenomenal growth. But even in places of high employment, housing problems persist and multiply. Several recently published papers from the US, New Zealand, Ireland and Vietnam discuss the issues and the downsides of some state-sponsored ideas on meeting the need for affordable housing.

In the UK, forces veterans can get a tough deal – some end up homeless. But a niche sector, involving housing associations and others, has developed to meet the need for accommodation and support.

Researcher Mark Bevan and colleagues researched the sector and what veterans want.

Turning to the demand side, social security benefits are of course a key component in meeting the cost of housing. The Welfare Conditionality project recently reported after its five-year study of conditionality in the system: that’s when certain behavioural requirements are placed on recipients, under threat of sanction for non-compliance.

The six-university team looked at issues including Universal Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, and other benefits. They also considered other forms of conditionality, for example around anti-social behaviour, homelessness and social housing. Their conclusions raise fundamental questions about current policy.

Janis Bright Editor Evidence

Economic success brings housing problems The problems of providing affordable housing in high growth cities around the world are the subject of several recent research papers.

In a fascinating tour that holds many resonances for the UK, Gabriel Metcalf outlines problems in US cities such as Seattle, Denver, Boston and New York. These cities are growing rapidly and many low and middle income people are being priced out of the existing housing.

Efforts to provide enough social housing in high cost cities are like building ‘sand castles before the tide’, he says.

Assessing four aspects of housing cost – building social housing, ‘vouchers’ (akin to Local Housing Allowance), rent controls and regulation, Metcalf finds obstacles with each. Some of his solutions, including ‘upzoning’ or building at higher density and rethinking minimum standards, may not appeal to a UK audience. But other ideas including better transport to draw less prosperous areas into reach of economically better off ones, new

cities, and simply spending more on social housing, are all on the table for debate here too.

In New Zealand, the government has opted for a quasi-market approach to deliver social housing. But, finds Peter Dykes, the reliance on demand-side subsidies to encourage provision is unlikely to succeed.

In Dublin meanwhile, the economic crash and subsequent regrowth have brought a marketised approach to housing that excludes some of the most vulnerable. Rory Hearne and Mary Murphy report on homeless families with children, who are expected to access private rented housing with the help of an assistance payment.

Building of social housing in Ireland has been in longterm decline, intensified after 2008. The private rented sector is now expected to be the primary provider of new social housing.

The homeless families studied were living in emergency accommodation. They were expected to use their Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) to find rented JULY 2018 |

EVIDENCE - 1

housing. But they faced stigma and discrimination, some being refused by landlords up to 35 times.

The research acknowledges that HAP provides important short-term housing support to tens of thousands of families, and prevents families becoming homeless. But for those already homeless, the process systematically excludes them and ‘compounds their trauma’.

Vietnam’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City, has also seen rapid growth, driven by industry. Its success has drawn residents from many other places but housing provision for the new workers remains problematic. Vietnam only recognised ‘social housing’ in law in 2005.

LM Ngo’s paper proposes a model to tackle the problem by remodelling some existing housing to produce better standards and extra homes.

Sand castles before the tide? Affordable housing in expensive cities https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/ pdf/10.1257/jep.32.1.59 The quasi-market approach: the answer for social housing in New Zealand? https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/pq/ article/view/4594 An absence of rights: Homeless families and social housing marketisation in Ireland https://www. degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/admin.2018.66.issue-2/ admin-2018-0016/admin-2018-0016.pdf Social housing for workers – a new housing model for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam http://iopscience.iop.org/ article/10.1088/1755-1315/143/1/012060/pdf

Developing housing and support pathways to meet the accommodation needs of single veterans The Centre for Housing Policy, University of York, recently published research on the housing and support needs of single veterans. Here, Mark Bevan reflects on the key messages reported by veterans themselves and accommodation providers.

The available evidence suggests that there is a small but significant group of veterans who become homeless or are at risk of homelessness. Housing providers (both generic and veteran organisations) have responded to this by developing a niche sector of veteran accommodation – with some provision still being developed. Our study showed that this niche sector is valued by service users (particularly acknowledging their identity as veterans), and despite some challenges, can be a catalyst to help veterans to begin to stabilise their lives following adverse life events, including homelessness.

For most veterans in the study, there was a clear preference for dedicated services. There was an overwhelming view that the veteran-specific schemes had made a significant impact on respondents’ lives at the point of moving in. Whilst there was a high level of satisfaction with the accommodation, a number of areas were highlighted for improvement including: • More support for parents to re-establish/maintain close relations with children • More proactive support and activities within supported accommodation • Improved move-on opportunities with ongoing resettlement support • Support with employment was a high priority in most schemes, though locational issues and rent levels, alongside health needs, sometimes made it hard for people to find and sustain employment whilst living in schemes.

The study also highlights how more could be done to improve advice and access to housing from transition from the Forces to settled accommodation. More proactive transition planning is required that targets the

EVIDENCE - 2

| JULY 2018

most vulnerable, both pre-and post-Service leaving.

However, there is also an issue of how to better support veterans who become homeless sometime after leaving the Forces. The study showed that veterandedicated housing options are not well known to the exService community, and most of our interviewees had not heard about veteran-specific accommodation until they found out about it – often by chance – long after they had left Service. A conclusion is that there may be cohorts of veterans who left the Forces some time ago who have hidden needs, and may be disconnected from services, or from information about how to get help. Referral routes into this provision also, therefore, need improvement. Generic and wider veteran welfare services also need to act as key routes into this sector.

The veteran-dedicated accommodation sector, at present, is chiefly responding to need presented at crisis point. However, research participants’ housing journeys suggested multiple opportunities to better support veterans much earlier, upstream of crisis situations.

Furthermore, where veterans do access the veterandedicated accommodation sector, this study also suggests that improvements are needed to processes for nominations to generic housing and support services from the veteran-dedicated accommodation sector.

The new Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 represents a major opportunity to ensure that veterans are reached within the new extended homelessness duties.

In particular, preventative work on family breakdown such as mediation and reconciliation assistance could be of benefit in this regard. All local authorities should record whether applicants for assistance with housing have a Service background, and there is significant potential to involve a much wider range of mainstream agencies in identifying and referring veterans. Other research has highlighted the work that local authorities are already undertaking with regard to housing for veterans in relation to the Armed Forces Covenant (Forces in Mind Trust, 2016). There is a continued need to maintain this focus at local level, but government proposals on short-term and transitional supported

housing, of course, present a risk for the viability and sustainability of current or planned services.

On the back of our research, Riverside and Stoll, in collaboration with the Cobseo Housing Cluster, have developed a Call to Action that sets out their recommendations for the three main changes to policy and practice that they would like to see: 1. An improved transition process to prevent any serving personnel becoming homeless after service 2. Local authorities and other agencies operating in the ‘civilian’ sphere, eg, advice services, to consistently check if someone seeking housing support is a veteran and, if they are, to have a clear plan to respond to the veterans they identify 3. Government to ensure supported housing for veterans is properly resourced.

As part of this response, colleagues within the veterans’ housing sector have launched a vacancies dashboard listing all available properties across the devolved nations that have been ring-fenced

for veterans. This, alongside the introduction of the Veterans’ Housing Advice service telephone support for homeless veterans, are just two of the measures that the veterans’ housing sector has committed to in order to drive forwards practical steps to tackle homelessness amongst veterans.

This article draws upon research that was undertaken

by Deborah Quilgars, Mark Bevan, Joanne Bretherton, Lisa O’Malley and Nicholas Pleace on Accommodation for Single Veterans: Developing Housing and Support Pathways. Commissioned by Stoll and Riverside, with funding from the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), the research explored how key stages of the housing pathways of single veterans could be better supported by all services working with Service personnel and veterans, and in particular, how the veteran sector could better respond to the housing and support needs of single veterans. www.riverside.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/ Veterans-research-University-of-York-full-report.pdf

Conditionality in welfare system challenged by research The system of welfare conditionality in the UK, which places behavioural requirements on social security recipients, is largely ineffective and in some cases pushes people into poverty and crime, a major study has found.

We’ve achieved so much and I don’t think I would have got through it without them [project workers] coming and helping, I don’t know where I would have been if I didn’t get the help that I did get. Things could have come out a lot worse. (FEMALE, ENGLAND, SUBJECT TO FIP, WAVE C)

The six-university Welfare Conditionality Project (WelCond) tracked a group of 339 service users over a period of up to two years, to find out what changed in their lives over time. It found that benefit sanctions, and the threat of sanctions, not only failed to help people into work, they could actually be counterproductive.

The intensive, holistic and personalised support made available through FIPs was directly linked to positive changes in behaviour and circumstances, the researchers said.

This did not mean progress was linear: often people went through periods of regression as well. And the report says the gains achieved were often subsequently undermined by welfare conditionality within a benefit system built around depersonalised sanctions and lacking support.

In the study overall, mandatory support was all too often found to be of low quality or inappropriate. In the Universal Credit group, the researchers did find some evidence of helpful training that got people a job. But others reported being told to apply for jobs they had no qualification for.

Key findings include: • Little evidence welfare conditionality enhanced people’s motivation to prepare for or enter paid work • Some people pushed into destitution, survival crime and ill health • Benefit sanctions routinely triggered profoundly negative personal, financial and health outcomes • The mandatory training and support is often too generic, of poor quality and largely ineffective in enabling people to enter and sustain paid work.

The report quotes a homeless man who says he was forced into drug dealing due to welfare conditionality, while a disabled woman said she ‘sunk into depression’ as a result of benefit sanctions.

The study also included groups with particular vulnerabilities, including offenders, homeless people, and those who had been involved in anti-social behaviour or family intervention. Here, a marked contrast was found. Where people received appropriate, tailored and personalised support – including from voluntary organisations and Family Intervention Projects (FIPs) – this was pivotal in helping them achieve improvements in their lives.

I was looking for jobs that I had no training in... I’ve never worked in a kitchen. The first thing you do when you ring up is, ‘Have you got any experience?’ ‘No’ ‘Well sorry’.

(UC RECIPIENT, MALE, ENGLAND, WAVE C) The researchers are calling for a rebalancing of the social security system, away from sanctions and toward appropriate, personalised support. They say applying conditionality including sanctions to disabled people, homeless people and those with drug or alcohol dependencies should be halted.

WelCond final findings overview, Peter Dwyer http:// www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/publications/finalfindings-welcond-project/ JULY 2018 |

EVIDENCE - 3

WelCond findings: anti-social behaviour The WelCond researchers recruited to the study 40 people in England and Wales who had been subject to ASB or family intervention measures. Of those followed over a two-year period, half had dependent children and most lived in social housing.

The participants had complex needs including poor physical and mental health, substance misuse, periods spent homeless, family problems, childhoods in care and domestic violence; six had served a custodial sentence. The most frequent types of interventions experienced were ASBOs and FIPs. Some individuals had been subject to ABCs and housing-related interventions including notices seeking possession, injunctions and Scottish Short Secure Tenancies.

The majority of research participants did show behaviour change and experienced changes to their circumstances during the period of the study.

Interventions, particularly supportive mechanisms, were essential elements of these changes, with the supportive role of FIPs identified as a key factor. This support comprised direct intervention, signposting to other services and an advocacy role.

She opened my eyes to a wider path. Basically the work she did was absolutely amazing... She never ignored me. She was there all the time. I mean I can’t fault her because she helped me with a lot of stuff. Like getting my name on the exchange list and things like that. We had time away from the house and things like that, we used to go for coffees and that was good. I enjoyed that a lot. (FEMALE, ENGLAND, SUBJECT TO FIP, WAVE B)

Research participants recognised the impact of their problematic behaviour and the need for agencies to address this and, therefore, supported in principle the ethical basis of sanctions. However, they often challenged the application and utility of sanctions in their own cases.

By giving me that ASBO it wasn’t solving the problem; it was just moving me on somewhere else. The problem being moving on to somewhere else, there was no support around that ASBO or anything to try and help me resolve the problem of being homeless. (FEMALE, ENGLAND, SUBJECT TO ASBO, WAVE A).

There was a stark contrast between the perceived efficacy of intensive and holistic support packages (including qualified support for the sanctions and conditionality elements of these) used in ASB and FIP interventions; with the almost universal rejection of the efficacy of the imposition of automatic and depersonalised employment-related benefit sanctions, which many research participants were also subject to.

None of the participants reported that such sanctions had been a trigger for positive behaviour change.

Rather, they had exacerbated their vulnerability and, indeed, had sometimes been directly counterproductive to the aims and practices of supportive interventions.

WelCond final findings: ASB, Elaine Batty, John Flint & Jenny McNeill http://www.welfareconditionality. ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/39273-Anti-socialbehaviour-web.pdf

WelCond findings: fixed-term tenancies The WelCond researchers studied the effects of fixedterm tenancies (FTTs) in social housing. These have been available since 2012 and in the future could be mandatory for most new council tenants under the 2016 Housing and Planning Act. But the research found little evidence that social tenants adjust their behaviour as a result of having a fixedterm rather than open-ended tenancy, other than in relatively minor ways (for example, some may be less likely to invest in home improvements).

Most social tenants with FTTs were only mildly or moderately anxious about their tenancy status, in part because the termination date in all cases was at least two years away. But it was a cause of considerable distress for a minority, especially older tenants, those

Evidence newsletter editor: Dr Janis Bright www.hqnetwork.co.uk email: evidence@hqnetwork.co.uk  follow us on twitter @hqn_ltd

EVIDENCE - 4

| JULY 2018

with a disability or health problems, and some families with children.

Tenants generally had only a vague idea of the grounds upon which their fixed-term tenancies may be ended, though most had formed the (probably accurate) impression that their tenancies would be renewed so long as they did not run up rent arrears or engage in serious anti-social behaviour.

The researchers call for the FTTs policy framework to be abandoned, and for the 2016 act requiring councils to use FTTs not to be enacted.

Final findings: social housing (FTTs), Suzanne Fitzpatrick and Beth Watts http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2018/05/39273-Social-housingweb.pdf

Your people are your most important asset – make sure you’re investing in them

HQN has an outstanding track record of helping organisations achieve real and lasting performance improvements. Ensuring your staff have access to relevant, timely training is vital in the ever changing landscape of the sector.

With over 200 different topics covered we have you and your organisation’s interests at heart.

Our outstanding team of training professionals deliver the highest quality training sessions: • Sign up to our public training covering a range of key issues from technical ones to soft skills • Looking for a more tailored approach for a number of your staff – book an in-house session and get real value for money • Can’t find the time? Take a look at our e-learning modules • Want something longer term? We’ve a range of qualified coaches and mentors.

For more information please contact hqn@hqnetwork.co.uk, call 01904 557150 or visit www.hqnetwork.co.uk

Bouncing back from the brink Plus Dane Housing Group has experienced some dark times in recent years but a recent V1 G1 rating from the Regulator feels like vindication for some tough decisions forced on CEO Barbara Spicer and the board. She talks to Jules Birch about the journey.

10

| JULY 2018

“I felt like the Wicked Witch of the East,” says Barbara Spicer as she recalls her first Christmas as chief executive of Plus Dane Housing.

She took over at the North West housing association in September 2014 in the wake of a governance downgrade over weak financial and risk management.

Her first few months were spent reviewing the organisation and its senior management team and 85% of them had been told they had no future at Plus Dane

by December.

However, that downgrade by the Regulator to G3 V2 was not even the lowest point in a journey that took more than three years before Plus Dane finally achieved a G1 V1 rating in March this year (see Timeline).

“There were a few things that had taken us into regulation,” Barbara explains. “But the two key ones were doing a commercial company called Three60, and the Ellesmere Port management contract. There were capability and capacity issues in the leadership team but there were also lots of boards – Cheshire board, Merseyside board, commercial board, you name it. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t transparent, but it was really opaque.”

The move by the Regulator was only the start of a long process. “With any organisation that goes into regulation that’s usually a signal that things are wrong, but it very rarely tells you the depth of what’s wrong because the

Regulator isn’t there to do that job. That’s your job in the business.

“What happened in those first few weeks was me establishing my role with the board,” she adds. “The board were just incredible to be honest, really strong, they stepped in to some of the management void with me but they knew they were doing it to step back out again.”

Was it hard? “I think focused and determined was what it was probably. I think the year that followed was a harder one than we thought. If going into regulation was a signal, what the next year became was understanding the organisation warts and all and really understanding what had gone wrong and what might go wrong.”

Unnecessarily complex “I’m from a local authority background and housing association finance to me is ridiculously complex and Plus Dane was just unnecessarily complex on top of that.

What became really clear over the following couple of months was quite how bad the impact of Three60 going would be because it was held against the social housing assets in Merseyside. Everything cross-defaulted everywhere. We had one really small loan to repay and we were struggling to repay it and the whole thing would have gone bump that summer.” continued >>

Barbara speaking at the last Plus Dane staff conference

JULY 2018 |

11

After months of hard work, it must have felt as though they were finally getting on top of the problems.

However, as a result of what they had uncovered, the Regulator put Plus Dane on the watchlist for V3 in May 2015.

“I thought I was the only chief exec who’d come into a bad organisation and made it worse,” Barbara says.

“The weakness for me was it really knocked the morale of the staff. At our first-ever roadshow I was saying ‘are we all up for this?’ and then the day before that we were put on the watchlist, so we were right at the bottom then, G3 and watchlist for V3. But that’s the Regulator’s job and that’s how regulation works in housing.”

The road back The road back involved more hard work to repay loans and talk to funders, restructure Three60 and de-risk the social housing assets. “It was getting back to what housing associations should do: let properties, collect rents, support frontline housing staff,” she says.

But that was not the end of the governance story, even with the immediate regulation crisis over and new board members recruited including a new chair in Sir Peter Fahy, former chief constable of Greater Manchester.

One of the most difficult decisions was the one not to rebid for the Ellesmere Port management contract in autumn 2016. Since 2012, Plus Dane had been managing 5,800 homes in the area on behalf of Cheshire West and Cheshire Council.

“That was a really horrible one. I don’t mind being shouted at but when staff cry it’s really soul-destroying.

It was a really difficult decision and it was [made by] the new board, but it was the right decision because we needed to protect our own social housing assets and we felt the risk was too big on that contract.”

At the same time Plus Dane was going through an indepth assessment from the Regulator but that ended with it staying on the same G2 V2 rating.

“There was lots of disappointment in the business because people do hang a lot on the badge,” she says.

“I told them it is what it is, we’ve been really open and honest so if that’s where it is we’re not going to fight it or argue with it. The business is about getting your arrears down, your letting times changed, all of that stuff and we’re doing really, really well, so just keep concentrating there.”

Finally, in March this year came that upgrade to G1 V1 status. That must have felt like a vindication of all her work? “It was a really good endorsement of what the whole organisation had done, and of the leadership from the different boards who’d handed it over to each other seamlessly.

“The important thing for me is we just had a

conference with all the staff about a week or two after the judgement – thank you, Regulator – and no matter how much I say don’t chase the badge, if you’re on the frontline of an organisation and the Regulator is telling you that you’re no good and you’re not getting better that’s really bad for morale – so this has been really good. It is really important but it’s only one element, isn’t it?”

Lessons learned As Barbara prepared for a summer off after a major back operation, she took a moment to reflect on the lessons from Plus Dane’s experience.

Lesson one is simplification. “A lot of other chief execs have said to me ‘well how can you be V1 when others are going to V2 and you’re not really strong on your money?’ and I think one of the big triggers will be that we completely simplified the business. It took a long time but it’s just Plus Dane Housing now. So interestingly as others diversify we’ve been doing the opposite and simplifying.”

Second, take the Regulator with you. “There were times it felt like they knew what I was having for dinner.”

Third, don’t chase the badge. “Your regulatory framework is a guide, not an aspiration, definitely not your aspiration. It did feel like we were aspiring to adequacy for quite a long time when we were at the bottom, but if our ambition is to be a really good social landlord with a really strong social and moral purpose but running a really tight business then your regulatory judgements will change, and you need to be mindful of them, but they weren’t my guide. My guide was ‘what do the best housing associations look like?’.”

Fourth, you need clarity from the board about what it wants to do. “The Plus Dane board’s attitude was that ‘it’s our mess and we’re going to sort it out’,” she says.

Fifth, use your capacity wisely. “If we didn’t have the capacity and capability in-house the external advisers became that for a time,” she says.

Finally, be really open with your stakeholders about where you want to be. “There wasn’t a day that our local authorities didn’t know where we were in terms of strength or weakness and the funders were really integral to this.

“In 2015, when we were trying to unpick Three60, the funders just said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s just not what Plus Dane told us in the past so why should we trust you?’.

I remember the staff were saying ‘this isn’t what we’ve been told, we were told we were really financially strong’ too and I had to earn people’s trust that year. But being really open with them has really made a difference with everybody.”

“Everything cross-defaulted everywhere. We had one really small loan to repay and we were struggling to repay it and the whole thing would have gone bump that summer”

12

| JULY 2018

Barbara Spicer – in profile It’s not every housing association chief executive who can claim to have had a street named after them – but Barbara Spicer has a road sign in her back garden to prove it.

Most of her career has been spent in local government but the job at Plus Dane was also something of a return home – not just as a Scouser but also because in her early 20s she worked as a co-op development officer for CDS Housing Association, one of the organisations that went on to become part of Plus and then Plus Dane.

At the time Knowsley had more new build co-op homes than anywhere else in Europe and one group of women she worked with liked her so much that a street was named ‘Spicer Grove’.

Spicer Grove Twenty years on, it has been redeveloped – by Plus Dane – but the residents moved to new homes and kept their principles, while Barbara Spicer rescued the sign.

She started her working life at 17 at Knowsley Council, then moved via CDS to the Merseyside Development Corporation, then after a post-grad in urban regeneration (‘which was interesting with no A levels’) she went back to Knowsley, rising to director for regeneration, before spending eight years as chief executive of Salford City Council.

It seems compulsory in profiles and interviews with her to mention her taste in hair and music. Both have followed her from clipping to clipping ever since her first job at Knowsley.

The Clash “So when I got to Salford the headline was Clash fan, mother of two who dyes her hair becomes chief exec as opposed to ordinary man, grey suit, easy listening music becomes chief exec,” she explains. “And I do really like The Clash – that was my first gig – but there’s always music on at home, I’ve got a son of 26 and a teenager that’s really into grime so the house is always full of really eclectic music.”

As for the hair, the latest news as we went to press is that: “It was pink and quite long a few weeks ago and it’s about an inch long and white as of last week, probably because I can’t get my arms up till after the operation. I’ve gone very, very short. But it’s just hair – it grows back. It’s fun. I’ve always done it. I’ve dyed it to death since I was about 13. My mum used to say it will all fall out – but it hasn’t.”

Timeline May 2008 Merger of Plus Housing Group and Dane Housing Group to form Plus Dane April 2013 Regulator (then the Homes and Communities Agency) expresses concerns over £8.1m fall in value of commercial properties owned by Plus Dane subsidiary Three60 Property Investors August 2013 HCA downgrades governance rating to noncompliant G3 over weak financial and risk management. Concerns include its growth plans, the performance of subsidiaries Three60 and Include, and pricing of £100m contract to manage homes in Ellesmere Port and Neston for Cheshire West and Cheshire Council July 2014 Barbara Spicer appointed chief executive, starting in September 2014 May 2015 HCA places Plus Dane on watch list of landlords in danger of having financial viability rating downgraded to V3 over continuing concerns about losses at Three60 September 2015 HCA restores Plus Dane to G2 V2 rating satisfied that it has taken steps to resolve its problems but still calling for governance improvements and action to manage material risks April 2017 Following an in-depth assessment, the HCA rates Plus Dane unchanged at G2 V2, concluding that it has strengthened its governance arrangements, improved strategic financial management and demonstrated effective mitigation of risk but ‘needs to manage material risks to ensure continued compliance’ March 2018 Regulator of Social Housing upgrades Plus Dane to G1 VI. The judgement says that it now operates ‘via a simplified structure with improved oversight of activity through one registered entity’ and ‘has also strengthened the robustness of its underpinning business strategies, improved the quality of board reporting including enhancing stress testing, performance management reporting and value for money outcomes, and has embedded a risk management framework at an operational level’

JULY 2018 |

13

A life in 15 questions Beth Watts

The Senior Research Fellow at I-SPHERE, Heriot-Watt University, and Chair of the Housing Studies Association reflects on the important things in her life

Q1 – Tell us about your career and how you ended up in your current role Since childhood I’ve tended to ask incessant questions, love a good debate and hold strong opinions.

In my early teens I remember becoming angry about the juxtaposition between destitution and wealth I saw. Seeing a man wash his feet in a bucket before climbing into his sleeping bag on a cardboard-on-concrete mattress in London’s West End when I was 14 was a formative moment. I think a pretty clear line can be drawn between those dispositions and experiences and my career, albeit via a degree in Politics and Philosophy, masters in Social Policy, PhD on homelessness and jobs at Shelter, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and The Young Foundation. The work we do at I-SPHERE tries to understand the drivers of homelessness, poverty and other forms of deprivation, and evidence effective ways to prevent and tackle them. I think a key part of the job is to communicate effectively, cutting through misperceptions, brute intuitions and often polarised, emotive and contentious debates.

I’m still perfecting the art.

Q2 – Describe yourself in three words Not always concise (… but trying)

Q3 – Favourite place on earth?

Isn’t life all about the search?

Q4 – What would you change about yourself?

My tendency to want to change lots about myself.

Q5 – Describe your house A 1900 (ish) top floor tenement flat in Edinburgh.

Q6 – What makes you angry?

Needless, preventable suffering; bad decisions based on an unwillingness to play by the rules of rational argument; ultimatums; pavement blocking.

14

| JULY 2018

and probably a contribution to an evidence-backed homelessnessrelated intervention closer to home.

Did you say just the £1m? The more illuminating response is that I cannot get my head around the idea of playing the lottery…

Q10 – Biggest achievement?

Writing a few things that have changed someone’s mind or encouraged them to think differently about something important.

Q11 – Biggest regret?

“Biggest achievement?

Writing a few things that have changed someone’s mind or encouraged them to think differently about something important” Q7 – Most treasured possessions?

My well-thumbed, scribbled-on collection of books. My collection of over-sized earrings is a more materialistic close second.

Q8 – Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

‘This is how you use apostrophes…’ by my history teacher to me at age 17 is definitely up there.

Q9 – If you won £1 million on the Lottery what would you spend it on?

My mortgage, the mortgages of some loved ones, squirrel away some for retirement/unexpected disaster, a sunny holiday and a dozen books to read on it, some Effective Altruism-approved charities tackling global poverty

Regret nothing, learn from everything. I confess to slightly regretting giving up vegetarianism in my mid-20s, discovering how utterly delicious rare fillet steak is, and then deciding that vegetarianism really is the right way to go. The cravings don’t ease.

Q12 – Most overused phrase?

‘Does that make any sense…’ and ‘sorry’. Both annoy me a great deal more than they annoy anyone else.

I hope!

Q13 – Recommend a book One?!… Steven Lukes’ Power: A Radical View for an endlessly useful set of tools for thinking about the world; Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, for its utter beauty and spectacle; St. Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels for being horrifying but brilliant. Ian McEwan is my go to holiday read. John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman is a wonderful book and its protagonist Sarah a flawed, fabulous, inspiring character.

Q14 – The best piece of television in the last 12 months The Handmaid’s Tale has been traumatic but brilliant.

Q15 – Tell us a secret about yourself I’m not sure I have any, but according to Orwell, if you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself, so no can do.

The last word You’re a board member and you can’t see the wood for the trees? You’re not alone

Peter Walters Former chief executive, First Wessex and HQN Associate More and more is expected of board members, but no one wants to see an exponential expansion of numbers and length of meetings.

At the same time board members are increasingly feeling the regulatory heat and the need to seek assurance on the activities of all parts of the business. Executives, equally conscientiously, are more than willing to supply the evidence.

The result can be board agendas crammed full with agenda items, supported by reports equally teeming with information.

Warning signs Members risk skating over the bits that should worry them in order to get to the end on time, but by lightly touching all the bases in the interests of comprehensive oversight of the business, we can run the risk of missing the warning signs tucked away amongst the pages of satisfying reassurance.

How to minimise the risk? In many organisations there’s something semi-sacred about board and committee papers. Tamper with the settled order at your peril. Board

report templates are set in stone, set sections must be completed come what may, despatch dates are sacrosanct and agendas items are always in the same order. And if it’s not on the agenda, don’t raise it.

‘Any other business’ isn’t allowed, or not at least unless the chair’s been notified in advance.

Order and structure are good – but only up to a point. Agility and flexibility have a place too. What if a top area of concern is buried in a report three-quarters of the way through the agenda and it’s already close to bed time? Or there’s a time bomb lurking in the minutes of the audit committee on page 252...?

Board agendas items needn’t be the same every time. They need to be reordered afresh for every meeting, starting with what’s most important (not what we are most proud of, nor what’s most interesting, and certainly, not what we always start with), but who’s to say what’s most important?

Step forward the chief executive and the chair, and there are two things they can do. One, most obviously, is to decide every time

useful but less frequently deployed tool, is to start every board meeting (and committee meeting, I suspect) with a scene-setting introduction from the chief executive and chair, broadly entitled ‘This is what’s currently preoccupying us’.

It can be in the form of a verbal round-up, a brief PowerPoint, or more likely a written brief report.

It can be in the form of a chief executive’s report. If it’s written, it can be exempt from normal rules of despatch so that it’s current and up to date. It can (and should) draw attention to reports elsewhere on the agenda that contain the most important elements of the meeting, and/or it can and should forewarn the board of what’s coming up over the horizon. It should also update board members on previous decisions and discussions on major issues, which are still rumbling on.

Focusing minds What’s preoccupying us in the immediate moment, the shortterm future, and the long term?

Are we right to be focused on

“What if a top area of concern is buried three-quarters of the way through the agenda and it’s already close to bed time?

Or there’s a time bomb lurking in the minutes of the audit committee on page 252...?” what the order of business should be so that at least the starting point is an informed and agreed order of play – and the criteria for a place in the top agenda items are around the level of risk and opportunity the areas pose to the business.

Preoccupations But a second, and potentially more

these issues? Is there anything we are missing? Focusing the minds of board members on the key issues at the very start of the meeting sets the tone, clears a path through the woods, and creates the conditions for a balanced debate on the things that matter.

With the regulatory pressure on, non-executives need all the help they can get.

JULY 2018 |

15

New for 2018 –

Excellence in Governance Group HQN is launching a new Excellence in Governance Group for members of the Housing Quality Network.

Featuring news, briefings, webinars, toolkits and workshops from HQN’s team of governance experts, we’ll cover everything you need to help your board run efficiently and effectively. We’ll also provide networking opportunities – face to face and through our online forum.

The group will cover the strategic:

And the practical:

• Regulatory updates

• Running effective meetings

• VfM best practice • Audit and risk

• Governance best practice from inside and outside the sector

• Compliance

• The role of the company secretary.

• Assurance.

Not a member yet?

Call us on 01904 557150 to discuss how the Housing Quality Network can meet your needs, or visit www.hqnetwork.co.uk.

Our pricing plan makes the Housing Quality Network affordable to any size of organisation with packages designed to meet your specific requirements.