Agenda item

Presentation and discussion (slides attached)

Officer presenting – Sarah Spicer

The Business Innovation Manager (Housing and Landlord Services) gave a presentation on the updated Moving Forward Together draft model.

The Board was reminded of the draft model’s six key priorities –

1. Design services from the resident’s point of view;

2.     Provide services that are visible and local;

3. Rebuild trust and relationships;

4. Be a diverse and inclusive service that fully represents the city of Bristol;

5. Engage residents and employees in a creative and meaningful way;

6. Give back accountability and decision making to residents and employees.

Key issues and emphasis in the update were –

a)     That residents must be listened to and processes introduced that made it easier for residents to make contact with Housing Officers and other key council staff;

b)     Building of trust formed a fundamental part of the approach particularly around on site safety and security;

c)     Despite challenging Covid-19 restrictions significant progress had been made and 60 workshops had been held to facilitate the listening and understanding of concerns and feedback from residents;

d)     There had been surveys sent to residents asking a range of questions in relation to the six main priorities; contacted 500 residents on average per week;

e)     Feedback identified a number of priorities including  provision of local surgeries and more opportunities for face to face contact, improved  litter control and installation of more CCTV around estates;

f)      Modernising how the H&LS team engages with residents;

g)     Look at what needed to change to deliver a resident led service with full accessibility;

h)     The Operating model must give residents priorities full backing so it was essential that the H&LS was able to test its own ambitions and make sure that new ways of operating worked;

i)       The pilot scheme would fully test the robustness of the model and alongside testing would enable looking at ways of working with other services that the Council provides;

j)       Training & Development of employees would be a key feature of improving services;

k)     The pilot to commence in  spring of next year, it was envisaged that residents would be able to really see a difference to service provision

Arising from questions the following points were made/clarified -

                           i.          It was anticipated that the work of the Residents Advisory Group would meaningfully engage with the pilot in order to identify what would work and what would not;

                          ii.          With regard to the pilot, preliminary work would look at long standing work patterns and Housing Officer availability as it was recognised that without proper resources the proposals would not work as intended;

                        iii.          The Pilot would use an area that best represented the whole of the City. Issues to explore will include staff get access to facilities, lone working issues and associated safeguarding when on remote sites;

                        iv.          It was suggested that the Pilot consider two locations to better capture the diversity eg one in centre of the City and one further out as the issues could be very different. This would be explored Action: Business Innovation Manager;

                          v.          The next MFT update would measure the success of both the Pilot;

                        vi.          Possible presentation for next meeting about Human Resource aspects regarding recruitment and retention of Housing Officers and the opportunities of a professional career, rather than just a job, in the context of the Pilot scheme;

                       vii.          Noted that the Pilot scheme would be fully resourced to obtain the best feedback and the ability to assess the robustness of the proposed changes. This would include the required number of housing officers and surveyors.

The Board noted the presentation and endorsed its aims and objectives.