Purpose

The complexity and significance of the national housing crises
alongside the London wide additional pressures associated with the
characteristics of the capital’s housing landscape have an
amplified impact on Tower Hamlets due to the unique demographics of
the Borough.
 
The Council’s Housing Options Service is facing
unprecedented levels of increasing demand and levels of complexity
in homelessness cases. This is the underlying driver constraining
the services’ ability to discharge our statutory duties
effectively. Housing is a primary corporate priority for the London
Borough of Tower Hamlets. The Council’s commitment to
ensuring accessible high-quality customer centric public services
drives our ambition to exceed, rather than simply meet the minimum
levels of statutory housing duties.
 
The exponential increase in volumes of homelessness cases in Q4
to the last financial year drives an immediate call to action. Over
the years, there has been reconfiguring of resources, which has
seen resources moved from the front end of the service into
management positions. This – alongside the growing demand on
the service – has had a negative impact on the
service’s ability to adapt to these demands and deliver. We
do not have the luxury of waiting for longer term transformation to
materialise - we need to act now, or we will not resource the
bigger changes effectively.
 
The cost to all local authorities of meeting their obligations
to those experiencing homelessness has increased exponentially
recently. Higher levels of investment have been made by Tower
Hamlets. However, the additional investment made has been driven by
substantial increases in 3rd party costs of temporary accommodation
for a higher number of people. The consequent burden and pressures
faced by internal staff teams to support the substantial increase
in demand now needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
 
Although there has been heavy investment, the lack of a suitable
structuring of the service fit to deal with the changing external
service landscape and demands – coupled with the omission of
a comprehensive service review, redesign and new
delivery plan – has compounded these issues.
 
This paper seeks significant additional investment to the
resources available to the service, to address its fundamental
structural issues driven by lack of a cogent and adapted service
design and delivery plan and missing front-line resources that have
been offset by an increase in management positions. This has led to
a drop in service-satisfaction for residents and
inability to meet exponentially increasing demand. The investment
will help to strengthen and support the invaluable work being
undertaken by our skilled and professional staff teams in our
current operations, and to complete a full service
review and redesign underpinned by a robust delivery plan.
 
This report sets out a recommendation to immediately invest in
additional resources for frontline services to:
 
·        
Develop capacity on the frontline to provide an empathetic and
dignified response to every service user seeking support.
·        
Address the pressures within the service caused by increasing
demands including high caseloads and backlogs.
·        
Alleviate pressures on the workforce and build capacity for staff
to access additional support and development.
·        
Implement expanded face to face service hours to provide those in
need with wider access to the service including later opening hours
on weekdays and on a Saturday morning.
·        
Secure improvements to the council’s telephony services
providing benefits to the wider organisations.

Content

The Mayor noted and agreed the reasons for urgency
as set out in the report. Councillor Jahed Choudhury, Chair of
Overview and Scrutiny Committee, informed attendees that he had
received the reasons for the urgency and he agreed
that the decision was urgent and that he felt it was
reasonable for the Mayor to consider the report at this
Cabinet meeting.
 
DECISION
 
1.   
Approve the immediate release £1.93m additional revenue
allocation from the council’s budgeted service contingency
general fund provision for improvements to the Housing Options
homelessness services as summarised in section 3.5 and detailed in
Appendix 1 to the report.
 
2.   
Agree that the service improvements will include:
·        
Development of capacity on the frontline to provide an empathetic
and dignified response to every service user seeking support by
identifying gaps, shortages and whether there are capacity and
skills issues.
·        
A full and complete service review and redesign, with immediate
reorganisation to be initiated.
·        
Cultural and structural changes, to prevent staff churn and ensure
that the newly recruited frontline workers are retained within the
organisation.
·        
Review of the structural composition of the service to identify key
issues that may be affecting service delivery.
·        
Review senior management arrangements and the performance across
the service to understand the relationship with frontline workers,
both outward[1]facing and in the back
office.
·        
Establish a service review, with a view to creating a revised and
refreshed service delivery plan to address key areas of cultural
concerns and staffing shortages in the service.
 
3.   
Establish a special taskforce designed to give focused and
prioritised attention to overseeing the recruitment and
restructuring of the service. This will include the Corporate
Directors for Resources and Housing and Regeneration (or
representative), a representative from the Mayor’s Office,
representatives from the Council’s recognised Trade Unions
and delegates from the service.
 
4.   
Note the allocation of this additional funding in the current year
will be built into the Medium-Term financial planning for future
years and is not forecast to compromise the council's sustainable
financial position across the current medium.
 
5.   
Note contingency sums for the current year have been set aside
within the approved budget for exactly such specific purpose. Our
MTFS was approved by members with explicit reference to
demand-based risks relating to temporary accommodation. Further
information and assurance are set out in the Chief Financial
Officer’s comments at section 6 of this report.
 
6.   
Note all impact on staffing will be compliant with the
council’s stated principles of focussing investment in front
line services, protecting the lowest paid and avoiding compulsory
redundancy situations wherever possible.
 
7.   
Note the specific equalities considerations as set out in Paragraph
4 of the report.
Action by
CORPORATE DIRECTOR HOUSING AND
REGENERATION (P. PATTERSON)
Director Housing (K. Swift)