Agenda item

Report CS17045

The Care Services Portfolio Holder introduced a report outlining the findings of a Gate report for the provision of statutory homelessness reviews.

Under the provisions of Housing Act 1996, homeless households had a statutory right to a review of decisions made by the Local Authority in respect of eligibility for assistance with housing and decisions relating to the suitability of accommodation offered to them in discharge of the duty owed.  The process for conducting such reviews was set out in the legislation under S202 Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 and required that reviews were conducted by someone independent of the original decision and senior in terms of rank or grade to the officer who made or authorised the original decision, and must be completed within set timeframes, usually 56 working days from receipt of the request for a review.

Since 2011, a proportion of review investigations for Bromley had been undertaken by external independent reviewers in order to deliver sufficient capacity for the increasing volume of reviews to be completed within statutory timescales.  The current provider had been identified after a price and quality comparison with other possible providers and in discussion with other local authorities.  Future service delivery options considered included continuing to contract out the reviews or for the Local Authority to employ a specialist housing review officer on a senior grade.  Many local authorities kept an in-house service for the majority of statutory homelessness reviews, but this was not considered to be the best option in terms of value for money or in responding to the varying workload.  It was proposed to continue to provide statutory homelessness reviews as a contracted service as this allowed the Local Authority to pay solely for the work undertaken and was estimated to realise significant savings compared to an equivalent in-house service.

In response to a question from a Member, the Assistant Director: Housing Needs confirmed that the work of external independent reviewers was monitored through a range of performance measures and that these would be included in the annual quality monitoring report.  The Member underlined the need to particularly monitor the quality aspects of this work, such as through benchmarking with other local authorities.  The Chairman noted the importance of communication during the review process and suggested an automated e-mail message be used to provide an immediate response to queries and reduce multiple contacts.  Copies of the information supplied to clients during the review process would be provided to Members following the meeting.

RESOLVED that the Council’s Executive be recommended to:

1)  Confirm the current arrangements for contracting out homelessness reviews until the new contract begins;

2)  Contract out the statutory reviews function under the terms set out in Report CS17045;

3)  Tender the external homelessness reviews contract for a period of three years with an option to extend for a further two year period; and,

4)  Delegate agreement to extend the current contract, if required, to the Portfolio Holder for Care Services for a period of up three months until the start of the new contract to enable handover and completion of any existing reviews under the current contract.