Agenda item

The Chairman welcomed Caroline Moore (Managing Director) and Simon Shewry (Head of Enterprise and Service Change) of the Yarlington Housing Group to present the work of their organisation in South Somerset.

The Managing Director’s presentation included information on:-

·         The group started in 1999 when it bought the SSDC housing stock for £70m.  They spent the first 10 years updating the housing stock and the second ten years developing new housing stock.

·         Their turnover was £60m with assets of £1.3bn and they were a not-for-profit organisation so profit was reinvested into new homes and the community.

·         The group had gone through a programme of Transformation 18 months ago to bring customers onto a digital platform, they had their own Direct Labour Organisation (DLO) to carry out repairs, and, they ran their Inspired to Achieve programme to help and encourage residents into employment and training.

·         They were currently discussing a partnership approach with a neighbouring Housing Association to enable more influence at a national and regional level and to deliver more new houses.

·         There would be considerable savings in bringing the two organisations together in procurement and delivering 1,000 new homes per year and also to help local communities and address homelessness.

·         Yarlington were actively building homes in the area and these were in part subsidised through market sales of houses as the rent paid did not cover the borrowing costs of building a property. 

·         30 new homes had been completed in Yeovil and Somerton in Q1 and 135 more were in-contract to be built in South Somerset alone.

·         Prefer now not to wholly rely on Section 106 development sites due to control of quality and delivery time of properties and prefer to develop our own land sites.

·         They had 369 shared ownership properties in South Somerset which were usually more affordable than private rented and a national campaign was about to be launched to raise awareness of them nationally.

·         SSDC and Yarlington had been working together on a land project to identify pockets of land owned by SSDC and Yarlington to develop for housing.  Currently 4 sites had been identified which could provide a capital receipt for both parties.

The Head of Enterprise and Service Change’s presentation included information on:-

·         Yarlington also provided value added services to their residents, including Independent Living for older residents, Inspired to Achieve to provide employment and training support, and provided careers guidance to 5 local schools.

·         Next Gen – their corporate strategy introduced the My Yarlington digital platform for residents to access services on-line.

·         The Government’s social housing green paper set out new expectations for housing providers to have a relationship with the people they housed.  In response Yarlington developed the Voice of the Customer (VOC) for them to shape the services provided. 

·         A community forum was launched with 10 Community Ambassadors who work alongside staff and partners to co-ordinate new community plans for rural living, health and well-being and youth. 

·         The Financial Responsibility team provide budgeting and welfare benefit advice to residents and new tenants and support customers moving to Universal Credit.  They ran weekly surgeries in Chard and Yeovil.

·         The SCC cuts to services announced the previous year had an adverse effect on certain Yarlington residents. A reduction in early interventions to prevent families reaching a point of crisis and investment in childrens services, family support and adult social care has been drastically cut.  Yarlington had strengthened its support to the Citizens Advice Service  and in partnership with SSDC, funded the Yeovil for Families scheme provided support for troubled families.

·         The decommissioning of the SCC Extra Care scheme has impacted on half of the schemes across Somerset and 7 of the Yarlington schemes were affected. Yarlington had supported the residents to ensure care reassessments were carried out.  The sheltered housing schemes helped them to continue living independently in their own home and hospital discharge accommodation was provided in co-ordination with Yeovil District Hospital.

In response to questions from Members, the Managing Director and Head of Enterprise and Service Change advised:-

·         Yarlington took reports of anti-social behaviour by tenants very seriously but encouraged residents to provide evidence of the behaviour and this would be closely followed up with the police and other agencies but it was a very small percentage of tenants who did cause ASB.

·         Residents were now encouraged to contact Yarlington by live-chat online and although it was recognised that some residents were not able to access services digitally there were less officers manning telephones which was difficult for some customers but this was constantly under review.

·         Climate change and fuel poverty were a key ambition of the new organisation which was coming together and all homes were being brought up to the Government energy efficiency standard by 2025 which included removal of solid fuel heating, solar heating and additional insulation.

·         Radian had an employment training support team which had lottery funding and this would provide a comprehensive service to customers when the two organisations joined.

·         Although Radian were twice the size of Yarlington, there would be a new board and executive team who would ensure housing was delivered where it was needed.  South Somerset currently had the greater concentration of housing stock and Yarlington were committed to the area.

·         Yarlington were retrofitting their properties with fuel saving measures.

·         SCC were an important partner of Yarlington but noted that some of their decisions were creating difficulties for tenants. For the Independent Living service the relationship with Adult Social Care was critical and discussions were ongoing to access capital funding for larger extra care schemes in the future and different options were being explored with SCC.

·         Although rent arrears could accrue in the early days of a tenancy as a Universal Credit claim was processed, the Finance Responsibility team worked closely with tenants to minimize this.  Tenants were expected to pay one week of rent in advance of a tenancy.

·         Yarlington were always working with other community groups to support care leavers and other vulnerable people.

Councillor John Clark thanked the Yarlington group for their support to the new Westfield Community Centre in Yeovil.

At the conclusion of the debate, the Chairman thanked the officers from the Yarlington Housing Group for their comprehensive and interesting presentation.

Presentation Noted