Agenda item

David Taylor from Midland Heart Limited will be attending to answer any questions raised by Members regarding the progress to date

The Chair welcomed David Taylor from Midland Heart Limited to the meeting.

Midland Heart Limited were awarded the Newcastle Housing Advice (NHA) contract, which commenced on the 1^st April 2014 for a period of three years, with the possible extension of a further three years following evidence of satisfactory performance and funding.

The NHA service was now delivered from the ground floor shop of 61-63 Lower Street, Newcastle.

Prior to the commencement of the contract, work began with the Council’s Communication Department to market the new service at its new address, an 0300 telephone number for users, email addresses, web site information and all correspondence linking to the NHA service.

An official launch of the NHA service was scheduled for 24^th September 2014.

The Chair asked if all Members had been advised of the latter.  The Head of Housing and Regeneration Services advised that invitations were sent to all Members to attend a drop in session during April and it was attended by ten Members.  The Chair advised that a flyer be distributed to Members informing of the official launch.

An online housing option advice toolkit and online registration for housing applications would commence with a new Choice Based Letting (CBL) system called “Homes Direct”, from the 1^st August 2014.  This system would enable customers to register and update their housing register application directly, allowing for registrations to be made live immediately following registration.  Every customer who registers online would have an ID number.

It was asked if the existing register of users was entered onto the system.  David Taylor replied it had, but the objective was to get applicants to register on line. 

Following implementation of Homes Direct by Midland Heart, the current Housing Allocation Policy would be reviewed by Officers of the Borough Council and a service level agreement would be agreed following engagement with Aspire Housing and other Registered Housing providers within the Borough.

Members discussed the monitoring statistics that were attached; one question asked related to the large number of exclusions (132 for quarter 1). It was confirmed that the reason for the exclusions was that 114 were excluded for no local connection to Newcastle, as per the eligibility criteria in the policy.

When Aspire Housing managed the housing register they also had a list for all their properties so they accepted applications for Stoke-on-Trent Housing and their new properties that they acquired in Stafford.  When Midland Heart took over the contract to manage the Council’s housing register, some of the customers for Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford were still coming to NHA.  These people, with no local connection, were excluded as per the Council’s local connection policy.  This had been clarified with Aspire Housing and they were now marketing their own Home Hunt applications process to their customers, resulting in a likely decrease in the number of exclusions in the future quarters.

It was requested that these figures are brought to the Committee quarterly and for Midland Heart to be invited back to Scrutiny on 18^th March 2015.

RESOLVED:-

(a)   That the Head of Housing and Regeneration Services distribute flyers to Members informing of the launch on the 24^th September 2014.

(b)   That Newcastle Housing Association monitoring statistics are submitted to Scrutiny quarterly.

(c)   That Midland Heart is invited back to the meeting to be held on the 18^th March 2015.