Agenda item

Paula Burton, Acting Assistant Director, Housing Management:

a)    provided a report to update Members regarding the current position in regard to tenancy sustainment within Tenancy Services

b)    highlighted that sustainment of  tenancies and keeping people in their homes was a key priority for the City of Lincoln Council (CoLC), with benefits for our tenants and for us as a landlord in terms of reduced void costs, reduced income loss and decreased management costs, together with benefit to the General Fund as tenant’s facing eviction were likely to apply for rehousing or assistance via the Homelessness Team

c)    reported that since the introduction of the Welfare Reform Act in 2012 tenants had faced challenges to their income such as introduction of the ‘spare room subsidy’, benefit cap, Universal Credit, and Personal Independence Payments

d)    added that the Pandemic in 2019, had led to a further erosion of income, not only for those on benefits, but also for those who worked full time who had seen a continued erosion of available income due to the cost-of-living crisis

e)    reported that in April 2022, Tenancy Services introduced three Housing Officers on two-year contracts, dedicated to working on our sustainment objectives to address these issues up to March 2024

f)     explained the four phases covered within the pilot Tenancy Sustainment Team and an analysis of how the project had performed against each phase at paragraphs 3 and 4 of the officers report

g)    advised that since April 2022, the team had only been fully resourced for 20% of the project; recruitment had proved difficult and when appointments had occurred, staff retention had again proved challenging due to the temporary nature of the contract

h)    emphasised that this had impacted on the service available to customers in curtailing substantial portions of its pro-active work to solely focus on income related activities which was the strength of the current Tenancy Support Team member

i)     reported that the existing Tenancy Sustainment Officer post would be extended by 6 months up to 30 September 2024

j)     advised that the Tenancy Support Team service would be reviewed and opportunities to improve overall effective sustainability of tenancies be actioned

k)    highlighted changes to the system to allow better reporting of cases and the ability to measure whether behaviour had changed as a result of interaction with the service moving forward

l)     requested Members feedback on the content of the report.

Members discussed the content of the report in further detail.

The following questions/comments emerged from discussions held:

Question: Reference was made to the Void Support Team  being able to offer a considerable proportion of ‘Phase 1: pre-tenancy support for vulnerable tenants’ with additional training and asked whether additional staff would be required?

Response: The support would be carried out by the Voids Admin Team and not the workforce. Some of the workload was already undertaken by the Welfare Support Team together with a degree of overlap with other services. There would be a rethink of other approaches for providing sustainability support through collaboration with other sources and different mechanisms to working effectively.

RESOLVED that the contents of the report including an update on the work completed by the Tenancy Support Team be noted.