Agenda item

To consider a report by the Director for Housing and Communities, copy attached as item 10

Before the Committee was a report by the Director for Housing and Communities, copies of which had been circulated to all Members and a copy of which is attached to the signed copy of these minutes as Item 10

In February 2021 this Committee received the report, Covid Benefit Measures impact on vulnerable residents, detailing how the Councils would develop proactive interventions to address issues arising from the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis. The report set out how the Councils would work with Policy in Practice and its Low Income Family Tracker (LIFT) platform to use data to identify and target interventions.

Proactive had been developed to describe a way of working which used data to target interventions aimed at reducing vulnerability and enhancing resilience. The work was core to the delivery of the mission to enable more people to thrive, focusing on enabling residents to be healthy, resilient and resourceful, to access the right help when they needed it and to ensure that everyone had access to a home and the help they needed to sustain their tenancy.

Proactive was about more than just the data. The Councils would work to redesign front line services to respond to the evidence. The Councils were seeing the benefits of working in a more proactive way. It was focused on hardwiring a more proactive approach into how officers collect income and recover debt, ensuring that this was aligned to the new corporate debt policy, which was premised on being fair, consistent and sensitive to people’s needs. The Councils were also designing more capacity into teams to enable the Councils to become more proactive in its approach to residents that needed help and support early, to enable them to manage and become more resilient. Working alongside community partners, officers would continue to develop the cost of living working within neighbourhoods and places, building strong community capacity to ensure that communities had what they needed to help each other during difficult times.

The report updated Members about the progress made, the cohorts that had been contacted and the impact to date. It shared information about TellJO - an online wellbeing assessment tool - and how officers had been using this with some early cohorts. Members were also updated on broader work to implement our income recovery approaches.

Members were asked to note that the next phase for Proactive would require the implementation of the new leadership structure to be in place. In the interim, the report sets out the use of the Shared Prosperity Fund and Homelessness Prevention Grant to support much needed capacity for this work.

Finally, Members were asked to note that Proactive was connected to the work of the Councils through the respective Cost of Living road maps, working with communities and partners across Adur and Worthing and within local neighbourhoods.

A question was asked about comparative data and how proactive had impacted individual wards. Members were told that additional capacity would allow the team to analyse data on a more forensic level.

Members discussed the item and lauded the work of the teams involved and the collaborative work carried out the partner organisations

Decision:

i) That the contents of the report and progress made by Proactive be noted.

ii) That the refocusing of this work as set out in relation to outcomes focused on alleviating housing front door pressures (Paragraph 5.12) 134 be supported.

iii) That the next steps for this work, including confirming the breakdown for the allocation of the Shared Prosperity Fund for Proactive during 2023/4 and 2024/25, as set out in paragraphs 5.10-5.14) be approved.

iv) That it be noted that the governance for this work sits with the respective Adur Cabinet Member for Adur Homes and Customer Services and the Worthing Cabinet Member for Housing and Citizen Services.

v) That a budget virement to create a programme of work for Proactive as set out in this report, funded from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund be approve, as follows:

a) £141,480 for 2023/24:

? Adur £59,480

? Worthing £82,000

b) £658,250 for 2024/25 (noting this is the committed Proactive and Cost of Living allocation):

? Adur £340,520

? Worthing £318,000

Call In:

The call-in deadline for the decisions will be 5.00pm on 21 July 2023.