CROYDON IN CRISIS: The head of an independent panel appointed to check on progress with housing following the Regina Road scandal suggests senior managers in Fisher’s Folly are not doing enough to get the borough out of special measures. EXCLUSIVE by STEVEN DOWNES
Blocked off: three years after the Regina Road scandal shocked the nation, complaints about damp and mould in council flats continue to be upheld by the Ombudsman
Croydon Council’s attempts to improve its reputation as a slum landlord will be “an exercise in ‘running to stand still’,” according to stinging criticism from the chair of the authority’s Housing Improvement Board.
The remarks have been made in a letter ahead of this week’s council cabinet meeting, where Mayor Jason Perry and his Tory nodding-dog councillors are expected to rubber-stamp a report on housing which suggests that everything is just tickety-boo.
The letter to Mayor Perry from independent HIB chair Martin Wheatley, however, provides a very different perspective, and is especially critical of the council’s senior leadership from outside the housing department. Wheatley’s letter, dated October 24, has not been included in the bundle of public documents that form the agenda for Wednesday night’s meeting of the cabinet, to be held in the Town Hall chamber.
The Housing Improvement Board was established in 2021, as part of the council’s emergency response to the scandal of housing conditions in flats in Regina Road, as exposed in reports on national television. Wheatley, a former programme director at the Local Government Association and Associate of the Institute for Government, has been its chair since it was formed.
Despite the council carrying out a raft of reforms and changes, including hiring new repairs contractors and bringing the housing complaints team in-house, after more than three years Croydon Council remains in “special measures” with the Regulator of Social Housing.
This, in part at least, follows a series of tenants’ complaints that have been upheld by the Housing Ombudsman, the most recent of which was published earlier this month.
In the council’s official report to cabinet, submitted under the name of Lynne Hale, Perry’s deputy mayor and cabinet member for homes, and drafted by Susmita Sen, the council executive in charge of housing, it says, “The housing service is starting to see a tangible impact on our residents with a positive trajectory on many of our Tenant Satisfaction Measures which we report to the Regulator of Social Housing.
“But we are not complacent and recognise the significant work still underway to set and deliver a higher standard of service to our residents.”
Hale and Sen have asked the housing improvement board for its support in an approach to the Regulator of Social Housing “to lift the current special measures and to normalise relations between [Croydon Council] and the RSH”.
Wheatley’s letter, and annual report to Mayor Perry, is by way of a response to those overtures. And the Housing Improvement Board chair does not mince his words.
Critical: housing panel chair Martin Wheeatley
“Corporate engagement and support for the housing service is inadequate, in terms of service delivery, corporate services and the approach to transformation,” Wheatley writes in his letter.
“There is a lot of potential for creative and strategic thinking, notably about how housing investment could contribute to better outcomes and value for money in the council’s homelessness and social care responsibilities,” he says elsewhere.
“Yet there are also serious risks that corporate transformation initiatives get applied to the housing service with insufficient understanding of its distinct character and the regulatory and government scrutiny to which it is exposed.
“The improvement board’s concerns were brought into focus when not one senior officer leader in the council outside the housing service attended our important workshop session last month on the next phase of improvement and the oversight and governance arrangements needed to support it, arranged many weeks beforehand.”
Wheatley explains how elected councillors, from Perry’s Tory administration, opposition councillors and members of the scrutiny committee, all managed to attend the sessions, and together with members of the HIB and council housing staff “contributed thoughtfully and creatively”. But, Wheatley adds, “The absence of a corporate top management perspective was therefore even more regrettable.”
Wheatley’s letter suggests that there is more than a sense of complacency and back-sliding from senior council officials from the high aspirations to fix Croydon’s social housing that were expressed when Regina Road was making national headlines.
Regular estate inspections were introduced in 2021. “We are concerned that some have not taken place recently,” Wheatley notes.
The housing department – like much of the council – has staffing issues. “At all levels, including senior leadership, the service is still too dependent on interim staff.”
And he also writes, “The council also needs to make sure that commitment to improving the experience of residents of its housing is a strong priority for the council corporately.
Absent: council CEO Katherine Kerswell and her senior managers didn’t bother to attend housing workshop
“The board does not see anything like sufficient evidence of that currently…
“In our view, the council is at serious risk of undermining the progress which the leadership of the housing service has made… because other parts of the council and the corporate centre are not making the necessary contributions to improvement.”
Wheatley provides some examples, such as the maintenance of grounds in and around council estates. He suggests that the council’s grounds maintenance team, which an independent consultant has recommended requires a staffing level of 100, is being run by just 29 staff.
“Transforming the experience of the Council’s housing residents requires not just improvement within the housing service, but radically improved performance by other council service functions, notably environmental services.
“Grounds maintenance of housing land is paid for by residents via the Housing Revenue Account, yet all too often, it simply is not happening, with grass and weeds left to run riot, so open space on estates is not available for children’s play and other uses.”
Wheatley’s letter also states: “With strong political drive and commitment, excellent leadership in the housing service, input from involved residents, and a lot of hard work by staff and contractors, the foundations of a functional housing service have been made, with tangible impact on resident experience.
Overgrown: the council’s estates management team ought to number 100 staff; they have 29
“The basic systems of performance and asset management and health and safety which were previously wholly absent are now in place, and positive changes in resident experience are beginning to happen.
“Plans for the regeneration of Regina Road have been developed with impressive pace and a transformed relationship with local residents.
“However, maintaining and building on that improvement will be an exercise in ‘running to stand still’.
“We are confident that further improvement can and will be made, but it will not be plain sailing. It is vital that positive changes are brought to completion and maintained… Estate inspections need to continue on a regular cycle: we are concerned that some have not taken place recently. It is vital that pressure is maintained to ensure the Regina Road regeneration does not fall behind its timetable…
“Complaints handling (on which… the Housing Ombudsman is challenging social landlords strongly), is not meeting targets or supporting the necessary shift away from a transactional process to one which generates useful management information about service improvements, so residents do not need to resort to formal complaints.
“Failure to address complaints at Stages 1 or 2 means too often residents must take their concerns to the Ombudsman, which is unsatisfactory to them, wastes resources and undermines the council’s reputation.”
And Wheatley concludes: “It is important that over the period up to the next progress report, a strong structure is put in place for the future, embedding resident voice strongly in oversight and decision-making, and – reflecting our concerns set out above – with strong and appropriate corporate involvement.”
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
The Council is currently advertising for eight Housing Officers. They may be to replace temporary/ agency staff but if not that deficit is probably very good evidence that the service is inadequately resourced in terms of staff.