Enhanced housing options

Caroline Flint, the Housing Minister, has announced the first round of trailblazers for the Enhanced Housing Options Programme. The chosen councils will move towards a ‘one stop shop’ approach for housing advice and links to job and training opportunities.

The Minister said the chosen authorities would provide guidance on options from social housing to shared ownership and privately rented properties and would link this to wider employment-related advice. This would mean people were fully informed and could make the right choice according to their circumstances.

Each of the councils will get up to £350,000 to develop their housing advice services and to link to employment advice and other services in line with locally identified needs. They will also take on a mentoring role and share best practice with around 20 local authorities that will receive funding for their own enhanced housing options schemes in 2009-2010.

The chosen trailblazers are the London boroughs of Camden, Croydon, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham and Southwark and the local councils serving Norwich, Nottingham, Kettering, Blackpool, Calderdale, Ashford and Bournemouth.

CLG is currently assessing the applications from councils to be part of the second tranche of trailblazers under the programme. The local authorities in the second round will be offered up to £260,000 to develop their housing options service. They will be mentored by authorities that are part of the first round of trailblazers.

At this stage, it is important that housing associations should be aware of the housing options services available in the areas in which they operate and act as real partners in the development of the enhanced approach. More about the programme can be found on the CLG website.

Local authority homelessness strategies

All local authorities had to produce their first homelessness strategies by the end of July 2003. They are required to review and update this strategy at least every five years. That means that those who have left it for the full five years will have needed to have published their new strategy by the end of July 2008. It is important that the strategies are up to date because all decisions on homelessness applications must take into account the current homelessness strategy.

Hopefully, many housing associations will have been involved in the development of these homelessness strategies and will have been sent the finalised documents. Even better, associations will be involved in groups that will implement the actions included within the new strategies.

If associations aren’t aware of the position of the main local authorities in which they operate we recommend that they should be proactive in contacting those authorities to get a copy of the strategy and to agree how best they can be involved. Knowing what is in local authority homelessness strategies is important for those associations drafting up or implementing their own homelessness action plans.

We’ll be happy to receive any feedback on homelessness strategies and to hear where there is real partnership working in their implementation. Please let us know!

Overcrowding data

We’ve previously flagged up CLG’s Overcrowding Action Plan that was published towards the end of last year. As part of this action plan CLG is providing funding to 38 pathfinder local authorities. They are the 33 London boroughs plus Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford, Liverpool and Manchester.

One of the key elements in the pathfinder areas is the collection of better information on the levels and concentrations of overcrowding and under-occupation. The local authorities are collating their own data and the main housing associations that operate in these areas of being asked to provide their data. At this stage the associations are being asked for information from their waiting lists on those households who are overcrowded as assessed under the bedroom standard, the size of accommodation they currently occupy and their current housing tenure. Data is also being sought on those on the waiting list who are under-occupying their homes and the size of accommodation they occupy. The data collection from the housing associations is being co-ordinated in London by Peabody Trust and outside London by Incommunities. There is some limited funding available to help associations draw down this data.

We know that the collection of this data has proved to be a challenge for some associations, especially using the bedroom standard for the assessment. However, it is important that we try to collect the best quality data possible so that together we can effectively plan to tackle the problems caused by overcrowding. If you operate in any of the London Boroughs, Leicester, Birmingham, Bradford, Liverpool or Manchester and have heard nothing about this data collection exercise please check what is happening within your association or contact us.

Other associations should learn from what is happening in the pathfinder areas. An early message is to start thinking about how you can report on the data you hold on your waiting lists and customer profiles to identify overcrowding and under-occupation so you can contribute to the discussions in your areas.

The contacts at the co-ordinating organisations are:
Peabody Trust: Jenny Scott
Incommunities: Atis Krumins

Otherwise, we’re happy for you to contact us to talk through these issues.

Leading Places of Change

The Leading Places of Change training programme is designed to strengthen leadership and management skills and build professionalism in the homelessness sector.  It has been developed jointly by the Chartered Institute of Housing, Broadway and Homeless Link and is funded by Communities and Local Government. It supports the government’s Places of Change programme that is investing £70m over three years to improve services aimed at rough sleepers.  The programme helps participants to understand the vision of the Places of Change agenda as well as to support them in the development of an organisational culture which drives the provision of these new style services, underpinned by a framework of excellent management practices.

During 2007 there were seven programmes delivered across England with 120 people finishing the programme.

It has been hugely successful, with all participants reporting that they feel strongly motivated, inspired and enthused as a direct result of the programme. In feedback from the programme 94 per cent of participants said that they have already used the learning in the workplace and early indications demonstrate that they are planning or have already made positive changes.

The programme consists of ten days training input with research and analysis projects carried out by delegates between modules. Participants should expect to spend around 50 hours researching and producing the work for the programme. On successful completion of the programme participants are awarded the Leading Places of Change Qualification which entitles them to membership of CIH.

More about the programme can be found on the CIH website. 

CBL guidance

Communities and Local Government has recently published its new guidance to local authorities on the allocation of accommodation through choice based lettings. We know many of you have been eagerly waiting for this guidance as you look to introduce a new CBL scheme, update your existing scheme or develop sub-regional approaches. The guidance is aimed at local authorities but it will obviously be important reading for housing associations that are partners in CBL schemes.
The guidance includes chapters on:

• Reviewing the legislation;
• Policy content and scheme design;
• Managing a CBL scheme;
• Delivering choice in partnership with landlords; and
• Regional and sub-regional CBL schemes.

This essential reading can be found on CLG's website

Events

These are some of the events being organised that may be of interest to those working around homelessness. If you know of future events please let us know so we can include them.

CIH: Young people and sustainable tenancies
London, 16th September 2008
Leeds, 25th September 2008

Lime Legal’s Choice Based Lettings Conference: the New Statutory Guidance
London, 19th September 2008

Northern Housing Consortium: Preventing Homelessness for the long term
York, 1st October 2008

Jordan’s annual allocation and homelessness conference
London, 1st October 2008

Housing Corporation Gold Award conferences
Tackling worklessness
Leeds, 2nd October 2008
Building cohesive communities
Birmingham, 15th October 2008
Delivering joined up development
London, 4th December 2008

NHF Tackling Homelessness: Prevention and Partnerships Conference
London, 2nd October 2008

Lime Legal: Mortgage possession conference
London, 3rd October 2008

CIH Lettings and Homelessness Conference
Alton Towers Resort, 18th - 20th November 2008

NHF Unlocking potential – How to tackle worklessness conference
London, 11th December 2008

Contact us

We ask for your input in a number of ways. If you can help us or if you would like us to meet with you please contact us.

Mark Meehan
mark.meehan@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk
07721 375104

Gerald Wild 
gerald.wild@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk 
07971 667119

Madeleine Jeffery 
madeleine.jeffery@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk 
07798 588752

Nick Sedgwick 
nick.sedgwick@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk 
07919 394910

Dave Anteh 
dave.anteh@housingcorp.gsx.gov.uk 
07920 781254