Agenda and minutes

Councillors and officers to declare any interests which they have in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

Councillors and officers to declare any interests which they had in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

No declarations were made.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on 2 February 2024 as correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on 2 February 2024 were agreed as a correct record.

The Scrutiny Review Panel is requested to consider next steps for the review into the accountability of social housing providers to the council and residents of Stockport.

The following comments were made/issues raised:

·         The Chair of the Panel provided a summary of what had been looked at already and expressed that the panel needed to agree an approach and a way forward.

·         The Chair proposed that the information already obtained be compared with other social housing providers across the country and that their mechanisms of accountability be compared and contrasted with Stockport.

·         Barnet Homes and Blackpool Coastal Housing had previously been identified as potential areas to look at, but there was a need to be realistic about the amount of time and work that this would involve.

·         The Scrutiny Panel was advised that no responses had been received from local Authorities who had been contacted previously.

·         The Chair agreed to provide political contacts for Barnet and Blackpool to enable officers to follow these up.

·         It was agreed that the areas to be looked at would include tenant engagement, the complaints process and anything else which would make the Council more accountable to residents.

·         It was suggested that the table demonstrating mechanisms of accountability previously drafted, could be populated with information from Blackpool and Barnet and that this would enable Members to have an overview and broad understanding of the issues which would assist in their considerations.

·         Recommendations from the Panel could be kept fairly open in order to take account of what the Regulator may suggest when they conclude their work in this area.  Recommendations could possibly be along the lines of lessons learned and areas that could be improved in Stockport specifically.

·         Members felt it was important to have a meaningful conclusion in a reasonable timeframe.

·         The Panel was advised that contractors would soon be appointed in connection with the Council Motion that was passed recently and that it would be December when their conclusions were ready.  It would be helpful to be as aligned with this as possible because this could then be fed into the Panel’s recommendations.

The Scrutiny Review Panel is requested to consider the date of the next meeting of the panel.

RESOLVED – That the next meeting would take place in December and that suitable dates would be looked into.