Action plan set to improve social housing services in West Northants
23 September 2024
An action plan is underway to improve performance of services for social housing tenants in West Northamptonshire.
West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) social housing provider Northamptonshire Partnership Homes (NPH) is embarking on an improvement plan to address performance issues with the support of the Local Authority after recently falling short on targets.
It follows significant changes to how the social housing sector is regulated nationally, with WNC responsible for ensuring stringent new standards and legislation are met to improve safety and support tenants. WNC are also required to ensure the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) is kept informed on performance and any potential breaches of standards, regular communication is maintained with RSH where appropriate.
NPH was set up by WNC (formerly Northampton Borough Council) in 2015 for an initial period of 15 years and is responsible for providing essential landlord services including delivering new housing developments, investing in existing stock, tenancy support, housing management, and repairs and maintenance.
Given the current levels of underperformance and the increased requirements for the Council to ensure compliance with regulatory standards, WNC have commissioned an independent assessment of landlord services’ current levels of compliance, carried out by Jarteign Housing Associates.
The assessments has begun looking at current performance, policy, practice and assurance frameworks and will provide an independent view on compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements. Following completion of the independent assessment, WNC will present the findings and recommendations report alongside an associated action plan to Cabinet later this year. Additionally, a Housing Compliance working group chaired by WNC’s Director of Communities and Opportunities is meeting weekly to review progress on key workstreams.
“NPH’s recent performance update to members showed they are falling short of targets, however work is already underway to address this and the Council is closely monitoring the situation.Cllr Rosie Herring, Cabinet Member for Housing
“We have made it clear to the NPH Board that this is not acceptable and it is critical that an improvement plan must be implemented to fix this. The Council will continue to monitor NPH’s progress to ensure we receive assurance as a landlord and Registered Provider that our housing stock is being managed efficiently in line with ours and our tenants’ expectations, and in accordance with relevant legislation and regulation.
“We are working closely with partners to outline a clear timeline of actions which will improve housing performance and ensure tenants in all areas receive the best service possible. We endeavour to provide improved transparency around these actions and the improvement plan will be shared in due course. We are working closely with the regulator to ensure we meet the required standards as soon as possible.”