Transparency data

RSH Board minutes - 23 February 2021 (accessible version)

Updated 1 February 2022

Applies to England

PUBLIC MINUTES of the RSH Board meeting

on Tuesday 23 February 2021 at 0930, Microsoft Teams Meeting (no members were together, and the meeting was deemed to have been held in London, the location of the Chair).

6 Remote and virtual participation

6.1 Any member may validly participate in a meeting virtually through the medium of conference telephone, video conferencing or similar form of communication equipment, provided that all persons participating in the meeting are able to hear and speak to each other throughout such meeting, or relevant part thereof. A member so participating shall be deemed to be present in person at the meeting and shall accordingly be counted in a quorum and entitled to vote.

6.2 A meeting shall be deemed to take place where the largest group of those members participating is assembled or, if there is no group which is larger than any other group, where the chair of the meeting is.

Present

• Simon Dow - Interim Chair
• Liz Butler
• Paul Smee
• Richard Hughes
• Ceri Richards
• Jo Boaden
• Deborah Gregory
• Fiona MacGregor - Chief Executive

In attendance

• Jonathan Walters - Deputy Chief Executive
• Maxine Loftus – Director, Regulatory Operations
• Richard Peden - Director, Finance and Corporate Services
• Will Perry - Director, Strategy
• Harold Brown - Senior Assistant Director, Investigation and Enforcement
• Emma Tarran - Assistant Director, Head of Legal Services and Company Secretary

• Jim Bennett - Assistant Director, Regulatory Strategy – for item 6 & 7

• Chris Kitchen – Board Secretary, Minutes

Observing (for second half of item 6)

• Kate Dodsworth - Director of Consumer Regulation (Designate)

1. Welcome and apologies

01/02/21 There were no apologies.

2. Declarations of interest

02/02/21 There were no new declarations of interest.

3. Minutes of last meeting - 26 January 2021

03/02/21 The confidential and public minutes from the meeting on 26 January 2021 were considered and subject to a minor amendment on the public minutes, both sets of minutes were APPROVED.

4. Matters Arising

04/02/21 Members NOTED the actions.

5. Forward Planner

05/02/21 Members NOTED the forward planner.

6. Chief Executive update

Registrations

06/02/21 Members were given an update on the recent three registrations.

• MP Living Limited was registered and designated as a for profit provider.
• The Mills Charity was registered and designated as a not for profit provider.
• McCarthy & Stone (Shared Ownership) Limited was registered and designated as a for profit provider.

Regulatory Operations

08/02/21 RJs: Members NOTED the narrative RJs published since the last update to Board. Following an intensive period of work, CEO highlighted the completion of the stability check programme which resulted in the publication of the final 28 strapline only RJs, confirming existing grades, in January 2021. Thanks were recorded to members of the Operations and Analysis teams.

09/02/21 Mergers: Members NOTED the providers currently in merger discussions, which are in the public domain Assurance was given that we are in discussions with most of the providers who are considering mergers and will continue to do this through our due diligence and review of financial data which will be available before an interim grade is applied.

10/02/21 External IDA Evaluation: members NOTED the highlights of the outcome of the recent evaluation carried out by IFF Research on our IDA programme. In addition to a survey, IFF also held in-depth interviews with CEOs of twelve PRPs. The response rate was good and feedback overall very positive. There were some comments that will help us with our direction of travel, but none that caused us any concern. It was AGREED that a fuller paper will be provided to Board at the March meeting before the results are published at the end of March. JB.

11/02/21 Kate Dodsworth, Director of Consumer Regulation (designate), joined the meeting. The Chair welcomed KD and members introduced themselves and KD gave members an overview of her background and experience.

Consumer Regulation Programme update:

12/02/21 Members NOTED the updates provided.

• We continue to develop a programme for tenant and stakeholder engagement on TSMs. Recent engagement with stakeholders has included the LA sector where we will continue to engage to build familiarity.
• The CEO is seeking a meeting with the new Chief Inspector of Buildings and will report back to Board.
• MHCLG are launching an awareness raising campaign aimed at social housing tenants about how to make a complaint about their landlord, focusing on the role of the Ombudsman.

13/02/21 AO Meeting: CEO confirmed that the meeting had taken place and gave an overview of the main points of discussion. Members NOTED the updates.

14/02/21 All staff conference: CEO advised that the anecdotal feedback had been very positive with staff reporting that they have very much enjoyed the Meet the Board session. The afternoon session on the White Paper given by WP had been very well received. She thanked John O’Mahony and his team and all the staff who had been involved in all the arrangements for the day.

15/02/21 Covid-19: Members NOTED the update provided.

16/02/21 Grenfell Tower Inquiry: Members were aware of reports in the media and they NOTED the information provided.

17/02/21 Policy Updates:

• Funding for removal of cladding: Members NOTED the details of the SoS announcement on the new funding being made available to leaseholders for the removal of cladding. Whilst this has been welcomed, feedback has been that it may not be enough to meet the cost of the range of remedial works that will be required to buildings. Government intervention to help unblock the delays with processing of the EWS1 forms has been welcomed.
• New Homes Quality Board: this board has now been established and the Chair has been named as Natalie Elphicke MP.
• Breathing Space Scheme: members NOTED the information provided and ML confirmed that there had been no contact from the sector with us on this and no issues have been raised. It was noted that the NHF has provided guidance for members.

18/02/21 Publications: of particular note was the imminent publication of the SDR and that this is the first year that we’ve published data for both PRPs and Local Authorities. We have had confirmation that the local authority statistic has been designated as a National Statistic in its first year and it was noted this is a really excellent achievement and a credit to the incredible hard work of the Data and Analysis teams. Members will be given a brief of the SDR data at the March meeting. WP

19/02/21 Media Coverage and Stakeholder engagement: members NOTED the updates. The appointment of Kate Dodsworth had received a lot of very positive media coverage.

20/02/21 KD left the meeting having thanked the Board for their welcome and the opportunity to observe this part of the meeting.

7. Corporate Plan

21/02/21 JB joined the meeting. He advised members that the draft of the Corporate Plan they had seen was slightly different from previous years. There is less narrative on post transition achievements, an additional section on the implementation of the White Paper and we have updated our strategic objectives. The D&I section acknowledges the publication of our Equality Objectives and the plan sets out our performance measures. The next iteration the Board will see in March, will have the section on business plan updated.

22/02/21 DG confirmed that she was content with the narrative on D&I. There was a discussion about the KPI section and in particular on how we are managing vacancies and RBP provided an update on progress with recruitment.

23/02/21 JB explained the next steps for the Corporate Plan. The Board will see the final draft at the March meeting.

8. Investigation and Enforcement update

24/02/21 HB introduced the I&E report which sets out more background to current cases. He gave members an update on short term lease-based providers in Birmingham.

25/02/21 Prospect Housing Limited: HB gave members an update on the current position in respect of this provider.

26/02/21 HB confirmed that Prospect are being open in their discussions with us and stakeholders.

29/02/21 Members will continue to be kept informed with progress on this case.

Long term lease-based providers

30/02/21 Hilldale Housing Association Limited: Hilldale is a small registered provider which operates a long-term lease model, and which claims exemption from the Rent standard on the basis that it provides specialised supported housing and has recently joined a group structure, with Change Housing as an unregistered parent. Hilldale was placed on the GUR list in early February.

31/02/21 Pivotal Housing Association: In early February Pivotal was placed on the GUR list.

32/02/21 Brent Community Housing: Brent was placed on the GUR list in December 2020 following a short period of engagement in relation to significant cashflow issues identified at Brent. Properties leased from, or managed on behalf of other private registered providers have now been returned to the head landlords and are being managed directly.

Non-compliant case reports

33/02/21 Green Park: We continue to engage with Green Park on a weekly basis.

34/02/21 Inclusion Housing CIC Limited (Inclusion):

35/02/21 Sustain UK Limited (Sustain):

Consumer regulation

37/02/21 Members NOTED that we continue to manage our consumer regulation in line with our current remit and within our existing resources .

38/02/21 Members NOTED the other updates in the paper.

9. Finance and Corporate Services update

39/02/21 RBP presented the paper and members NOTED the December year-to-date revenue spend.

40/02/21 Explanations were provided to members.

41/02/21 Covid-19: members NOTED that we had carried out another staff survey following the most recent lockdown.

42/02/21 Environmental Policy: RBP reported that at a recent JNCC meeting the Unions had expressed an interest in being involved in making the RSH more challenging of itself on its environmental commitments. We have agreed to commence discussions on how to bring this into BAU operations. Board will be kept informed of progress via the quarterly F&CS updates.

10. Q3 Performance and Risk report

43/02/21 Members NOTED the performance and risk report which reported in December one activity had been completed, one activity continues to be marked as amber, two targets marked as amber in November are now marked green. All remaining targets are marked green.

44/02/21 The Chair of ARAC confirmed that at the last meeting the committee had reviewed the SRR and had agreed with the ratings.

11. Any Other Business

45/02/21 There were no other matters of business. The Chair thanked members for their contributions to the meeting.

Date of next meeting: 23 March 2021 – 9.30am