The Housing, Planning and Development Scrutiny Panel were scheduled to meet on 23 September 2025 at George Meehan House to discuss key performance indicators, the council's financial position, the Housing Improvement Programme, and other topics. The meeting was also scheduled to include a verbal question and answer session with Councillor Sarah Williams, Cabinet Member for Housing and Planning.

Here's a summary of the topics that were listed for discussion. Note that this summary is based purely on the agenda and associated reports pack, so it cannot tell us what was actually discussed or what decisions, if any, were made.

Housing Improvement Programme

The panel was scheduled to receive an update on the Housing Improvement Programme, including progress against a voluntary undertaking to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH). This was to include discussion of:

• Safety and compliance
• Decent homes
• Damp and mould

The report pack included a summary of compliance with health and safety requirements, including fire risk assessments, gas safety checks, electrical safety, asbestos reinspection, lift inspections and water hygiene. It noted that as of 2 September 2025, there were four overdue high-risk actions from fire risk assessments, and 25 properties with electrical installation condition reports (EICRs) more than 10 years old.

The report pack also included a summary of the decent homes standard, and the council's performance against it. It noted that as of 31 March 2025, 80.65% of the council's housing stock met the decent homes standard. The target for 2025/26 was to make a further 987 homes decent.

The report pack also included an update on damp and mould, noting that as of 3 September 2025, there were 3 Category 1 cases and 332 Category 2 cases. It also noted a number of improvements that had been made to the council's response to damp and mould, including the creation of a dedicated damp and mould team, a dedicated telephone line for reporting damp and mould issues, and a new CRM system to manage and track cases. The report pack also included a summary of Awaab's Law¹, and the council's preparedness for it.

Corporate Delivery Plan 2024-2026 Performance Update

The panel was scheduled to receive an update on the Corporate Delivery Plan 2024-2026, which sets out the council's key priorities and objectives for the two-year period.

The update included a summary of progress against the plan's eight themes:

• Resident experience and enabling success
• Responding to the climate emergency
• Children and young people
• Adults, health, and welfare
• Homes for the future
• Safer Haringey
• Culturally rich Haringey
• Place and economy

The update noted that 68% of outcomes were rated as Green overall and a further 26% rated Amber, but that 11 activity lines or 6% had been specified as needing attention (Red).

The update also noted that 79% of milestones set to be achieved in Quarter 1 were delivered.

The update included a KPI dashboard to track performance and direction of travel on agreed metrics.

2025/26 Finance Update Q1

The panel was scheduled to discuss the council's financial position based on the first quarter of the 2025/26 financial year. This included discussion of the General Fund, Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), Housing Revenue Account (HRA) and Capital budgets.

The report pack noted that the council's financial position remained extremely challenging, and that despite setting a budget of £314.4m in March 2025, the council was now forecast to spend £348.5m on day to day services.

The report pack also noted that the DSG was forecast to overspend by £3.0m, and the HRA was forecasting a £600,000 overspend.

The report pack included a summary of the council's debt write-offs for Quarter 1, totalling £1.661m, of which 88% were parking debts, and 7.7% were HRA rent debts.

The report pack also included the council's response to the government's consultation on Fair Funding Review 2.0, with the council stating that if the proposals go ahead as set out in the consultation, the potential loss in Government funding for Haringey fails to align with the principle that funding to local government should reflect the needs of the population.

Work Programme Update

The panel was scheduled to discuss its work programme for 2024-2026. The report pack included a list of potential scrutiny review projects and one-off items for discussion at future meetings. The panel was scheduled to do a short review to align with the development of the Temporary Accommodation Placements Policy and Temporary Accommodation Discharge of Duty Policy, looking at how the organisation decides who is placed in what type of property, the use of expensive nightly paid accommodation and the types of accommodation that are used to discharge out housing duty, particularly use of the private rented sector.