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RESOLVED:
 
That Cabinet:
 
1. 
Approve the Housing Improvement Plan within the wider
Housing Improvement Programme.

2. 
Approve the Housing Ombudsman response.
 
REASONS FOR DECISION:
 
Approving the Housing Improvement Plan will
bolster and update certain projects within the Housing Improvement
Programme, refocusing them based on learnings from work to date and
our engagement with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH), Housing
Ombudsman Service (HOS) and Resident Scrutiny Panel (RSP). The
higher profile of the workstreams
within this plan will help to strengthen governance around them,
ensuring successful delivery.
 
Approving the HOS Response will enable us to
demonstrate our commitment to learning from complaints, and
willingness to expose our complaints handling culture and practices
to greater scrutiny.
 
Projects within the Housing Improvement Plan
will cover:
· 
Health and Safety Compliance
· 
Repairs
· 
including damp and mould, leaks and emergency repairs
· 
Learning from Complaints
· 
Knowledge and Information Management
· 
including IT system replacement
· 
Oversight and Workforce
· 
including establishment of the Housing Advisory Panel and
development of our staff behaviours framework
· 
Policy and Procedure
 
These workstreams
will generate the evidence required to demonstrate implementation
of the HOS recommendations, as set out in the HOS Response.
 
In addition to these workstreams, other work to improve Tenancy
Services, including our approach to working with residents with
additional needs and domestic violence and abuse cases, Home
Ownership and refreshing our approach to resident engagement and
locality working will continue within the wider Housing Improvement
Programme.
 
It is critically important to the success of
both plans that the Council moves beyond existing
“siloed” working practices.
Within Housing services this will mean more cross-team working
between Property Services and Tenancy and Home Ownership. Across
the Council this will require effective collaboration between
Housing, ICT, Legal Services and Governance, Finance and others to
ensure the Improvement Plan is appropriately resourced and
supported.
Progress of these plans, and the wider Housing
Improvement Programme, will be monitored within Housing services,
by the Corporate Leadership Team (CLT) and independently by the
Housing Advisory Panel and RSH. Additionally, implementation of the
HOS recommendations will be monitored by the HOS through to the end
of 2025.
 
As outlined in Cabinet Report CHE S493 -
Creation of a Housing Advisory Panel, which was approved in June
2025, a quarterly advisory report will be prepared by the panel
chair, setting out how the service is delivering against key
performance measures (including compliance with the RSH Consumer
Standards) and delivery against improvement actions set out in both
the Housing Improvement Plan and HOS Response. The report will be
submitted to Cabinet on a quarterly basis and Living in Hackney
Scrutiny Commission twice a year. 
 
OPTIONS APPRAISAL:
 
Do nothing - doing nothing is not an option as
this would leave the Housing service operating in a non-compliant
state.
 
Establish separate plans responding to the
Regulatory Judgement and Ombudsman Investigation: the RSH and HOS
have expressed a desire to avoid “double regulation”
and this is a key principle of the memorandum of understanding that
has been signed by the two organisations. Consequently, this option
is not deemed to be practical due to the overlapping nature of the
RSH’s and HOS’s findings. The bulk of the actions
required to evidence implementation of the HOS recommendations are
captured within the Housing Improvement Plan, with the remainder
comprising information requests.
 
Agree a Voluntary Undertaking with the
Regulator: this option was initially raised as an option by the RSH
during the Council’s engagement with them, but not deemed
necessary as the Housing Improvement Plan developed.
 
Develop the Housing Improvement Plan: during
the early parts of the Council’s engagement with the RSH, the
Council set out the existing plans to return to compliance. These
developed further in conversation with the RSH and a subset of the
most relevant activities within the Housing Improvement Programme
identified. It was agreed with the RSH that it would be helpful for
these activities to be brought together into an Improvement Plan to
aid their understanding of the work, give confidence to its
rationale, scope and objectives, and enable scrutiny of
progress.
 
This is therefore the preferred option.