Scrutiny Lounge London 1st February 2014

Scrutiny panel members attended the Scrutiny Lounge from the following organisations:

London Borough of Camden London and Quadrant

Innnisfree Family Mosaic

SOHA Housing Association Hyde Housing

Town and Country Housing Group Peabody Trust

The Scrutiny Lounge begins with an exercise that allows scrutiny panel members to vote on the areas of scrutiny they would like to discuss. The following questions were the most popular. For each question short discussions were held around the tables and then a group wide discussion followed. Some of the main issues raised are shared here.

1. Should members of a scrutiny panel be paid?There were different views on this subject including:

Those that said no gave the following reasons: “payment would compromise the independence” of the Panel; it eliminates some residents; attracts the wrong type of person - only there for money and to meet people; everyone should be treated the same; money comes from rents and other residents.

Those that said yes cited the following reasons: money incentives attracts people and may attract younger tenants, shows appreciation and is a recognition of the time and effort residents put in. Other comments included offering gift vouchers as an alternative and that the amount should not affect benefits.

2. Are recommendations published for wider residents to see clearly the progress and achievements of your work?All scrutiny panel members present felt it was really important to keep the wider body of residents informed about the work of the Panel, throughout the review process and especially regarding the recommendations. It was felt that residents could help monitor some if not all of the recommendations, as they were the ones experiencing the service

The following techniques are currently being used to keep the wider body of residents informed: articles in the tenants quarterly newsletters and on the landlords website; attend and feedback to tenant groups; word of mouth.

3. What are the Board response timeframes and arrangements in place for monitoring recommendations?There was a mixed response to this question:

One Panel was unsure

Two scrutiny panels said that their landlord put the agreed recommendations into an action plan but didn’t keep to the agreed timeframes.

Another panel said that actions and timescales were jointly agreed with their landlord. A traffic light system is used to monitor the progress of the implementation of the action plan, which is reviewed at bi-monthly meetings and also goes to the Board

4. How well have your recommendations been implemented after approval?Two of the scrutiny panels present had yet to complete a review so could not comment on this question.

One organisation reported problems with the implementation of their recommendations because of the continuous turnover of staff and how this affected their working relationship The majority of panel members felt that if the right processes were in place the staff turnover shouldn’t matter as its about maintaining services and standards.

It was suggested by another Panel that a traffic light system, where he recommendation is green if it has been completed, ‘orange’ if its being progressed but not completed and ‘red’ if it hasn’t been started or is way behind target is used to monitor the implementation of recommendations. This is gives a very quick but effective visual update and seems to focus the minds of the organisation.

It was agreed that scrutiny panels need to be clear about their relationship with their landlord (this should be detailed in the Terms of Reference) and that staff need to understand what scrutiny is and what it should achieve.

5. How did you recruit members?Two of the Panels present said that some of the places on their panel were reserved for members of other resident involvement groups with the remainder then put out to open recruitment through a selection process.

One panel stated that all new members are put on a six month probationary period and that the code of conduct is used to dismiss them if necessary.

The following techniques are used: articles in tenants newsletters and on the landlords website, recruitment leaflets, presentations at other tenant group meetings; events and tenants conferences, observation of scrutiny panel meetings. All those present agreed that it is important that tenants have an interest in scrutiny, are committed and willing to be trained.

All those present agreed that it was important to get the right people, who should be provided with the necessary training and support needed to carry out their role