Working Together works!

Those of us who work as consultants for local authorities will be familiar with the frustrations of slow decision-making and an apparent inability to get things done within a meaningful timescale. We blame it on ‘silos’, ‘a lack of joined up working’ or ‘departmentalism.’  To be fair, in recent years, a lack of public sector resources, outside Councils’ control, has exacerbated this state of affairs.

However, it need not be like this. NewmanFrancis have been engaged for over a year now by Thurrock Council to act as Independent Tenants and Leaseholders Advisors for their regeneration scheme in Blackshots, Grays in Essex. At the core of their proposals is the task of making sure that everyone moves out of the 168 flats in the 3 tower blocks by April 2025. Rehousing 156 of these households is the direct responsibility of the Council but the other 12 flats are owned by leaseholders. 8 of these were let out by their owners who live elsewhere.

Unusually, and to their credit, Thurrock have been taking a proactive approach to finding alternative accommodation for the sub tenants of the leaseholders. In most similar schemes, leaseholders are required to sell their properties back to the landlord, providing vacant possession on completion. The freeholders tend not to get involved in how this is achieved, leaving the leaseholder to serve notice, evict or rehouse their tenant.

By contrast, Thurrock have established an informal working group of staff with us, the Independent Advisors, to find solutions for all the occupants of the sub let leasehold flats. Out of this has emerged a case study in how, by coming together on a regular basis with the support and strategic facilitation of a senior manager, actions can be agreed and progressed based on a range of expertise, contacts and influence. We have had weekly catch up meetings and more frequent liaison by phone and email with the Council’s Leasehold Team who own the targets for achieving vacant possession, the Allocations lead for the decanting programme, the Housing Solutions Team and their Manager who apply the homelessness legislation and assess eligibility for rehousing and the Private Rented Sector (PRS) team who facilitate offers of accommodation with approved local private landlords. Our role has been to interpret and communicate this joint working to the residents, provide them with an accessible point of contact and feed back to Council officers changes in circumstances and concerns they may have.

To date, 4 sub tenants have moved, 3 to temporary accommodation (2 were the statutory responsibility of London boroughs) and one found their own alternative accommodation. Of the remaining 4, 3 are likely to move to temporary accommodation (with 2 of them remaining on the housing list for sheltered housing) and the fourth flat being occupied by 2 individuals who have been offered private sector rooms. This has all been facilitated within a month thanks to co-ordinated meetings and ongoing tracking and liaison with all the teams involved. We even had the Housing Solutions Manager firing off emails during meetings to move things along as quickly as possible. Flexibility on budgets to pay for removals, rent deposits and rents in advance have also been key to success.

It is true to say that if the numbers of residents involved had been greater, the Council may not have been able to take such a tailored approach to each of them. But it does demonstrate that, in order to achieve a target (in this case, the Leasehold Team’s need to allow enough time to complete the conveyancing of the buy back of 12 flats by a deadline) in a sensitive way, taking into account a range of needs, family circumstances and legal/policy constraints, the public sector and its committed workers can still get it right.