Minutes of MHPP Strategy Event: Wednesday 16th March 2016
Venue: Contour Homes, Didsbury
1. Attendance and Apologies
Attendance:
AB / Andrew Brown / Director of Neighbourhood Services / Contour HomesAMA / Abdul Malik-Ahad / Head of GM South & Tung Sing / Your Housing Group
AR / Angela Raftery / Executive Director Neighbourhoods / Irwell Valley HA
AS / Andrei Szatkowski / Exec Dir of Customer Services / Equity
CDS / Cym D’Souza / Chief Executive / Arawak Walton
CP / Chris Page / Operations Director / Arawak Walton
GC / Guy Cresswell / Director of Housing Services / Great Places HA
HS / Helen Sharples / Head of Communities and Support / Southway Housing
JA / Jacque Allen / Exec Director of Neighbourhoods / WCHG
JB / Joanne Buckley / Housing Manager / Your Housing
JC / John Cockerham / Operations Director / Guinness Partnership
JG / James Greenhedge / Housing Access Manager / Manchester City Council
JS / Jordane Smith / Partnership Officer / MHPP
JW / Judith Winterbourne / Managing Director / Contour Homes
KH / Kimberley Harrison / Neighbourhoods Team Leader / Equity
KK / Kulbinder Kang / Chief Executive / People First HA
KM / Karen Mitchell (Chair) / Chief Executive / Southway Housing
MB / Mark Beach / Performance and Cust. Services Manager / One Manchester
MK / Mushtaq Khan / Director / AKSA Homes
MR / Michael Redford / Managing Director, Neighbourhoods / Irwell Valley HA
NG / Nigel Graham / Head of New Business (North) / Guinness Partnership
PB / Paul Beardmore / Director of Housing / Manchester City Council
PN / Patrick Nolan / Technical Services Director / Mosscare
RB / Rob Brown / Stakeholder Engagement Officer / Manchester City Council
ROC / Rachel O’Connor / Development Manager / St Vincent’s HA
RC / Robert Collier / Group Head of Assets / One Manchester
RF / Rob Ferguson (Vice Chair) / Chief Executive / Mosscare Housing
RH / Richard Houghton / Director of Operations / Adactus Housing
RL / Robin Lawler / Chief Executive / Northwards Housing
YMD / Yvonne McDermott / Head of Development / St Vincent’s HA
Apologies:
AR / Allan Ramsey / Director of Investment / Guinness PartnershipCN / Charlie Norman / Chief Executive / St Vincent’s HA
DP / Dave Power / Chief Executive / One Manchester
HC / Hannah Clark / Regional Manager / Great Places HA
MG / Mark Greaves / Housing Services Manager / Places for People
NW / Nigel Wilson / Chief Executive / WCHG
SP / Sarah Paton / Head of Housing / Affinity Sutton
SS / Steve Sheen / Housing Strategy & Partnerships Manager / Manchester City Council
2. / Opening Remarks
Rob Ferguson, Vice Chair of MHPP, welcomed attendees to the event.
Karen Mitchell (MHPP Chair) and Paul Beardmore had been called to full council last minute so Karen was unable to be there in person as planned but both would be attending from 11am.
RF discussed the past year for MHPP covering the new governance arrangements and also changes in government policy which have impacted on the sector.
RF outlined the structure of the day, detailing that there would be 5 speakers that would be covering key strategic issues in Manchester for the coming year. Following this there would be group sessions in the afternoon to look at the proposed Manchester Housing Strategy and the MHPP Business Plan.
3. / Presentation: Integrated Place Approach in Manchester
3.1 / Jon Nickson, Reform and Innovation Manager at Manchester City Council spoke to a presentation which can be found, for reference, on the MHPP Website.
3.2 / A summary of the discussion following the presentation is as follows;
· JN – Intent to engage with all RP’s, not just those in the pilot areas
· RF – What is your ask of RP’s?
· JN – Public services need to move out of their comfort zone, there is no model yet so can’t be specific of what the ask of RP’s is at present
· RF – Important to ensure that the RP’s in pilot areas are feeding into the pilot and back through MHPP forums.
· JC – What budgets will be involved if we’re talking about ‘moving our of our comfort zone’
· JN – Will be co-produced with partners, devolving responsibility. The ‘Our Manchester’ work will be what drives it.
· CDS – How will this approach work for ‘real people on the ground’, areas where there is low turnover, settled communities. Surely there is a small cohort of people who create the need for this approach? How can we get more people involved on the ground?
· JN - Will address this through community reporting, groups reporting from within communities through a ‘bottom up approach’
· JA – WCHG are looking at a similar pilot, strengthening what’s in place in communities rather than doing the work for them. Highlighted importance of partnership working, it will take a leap for faith from all services involved.
· GC – What is the length of the trial period and will the LAC model still exist during this timeframe?
· JN – will need to clarify that and come back to you
Action: JN to feedback on status of LAC model during trial / JN
3.3 / Rob Ferguson thanked Jon for his presentation.
4. / Presentation: Housing Vulnerable People
4.1 / Hazel Summers, Strategic Director of Adult Social Services at Manchester City Council presented on key issues for adult social services at present and in the near future. (Hazel did not speak to any slides)
A summary of Hazel’s presentation is as follows;
GM Devolution
10 local authorities and 12 CCG’s will (from the 1at April 2016) begin to be responsible for the budget across Health and Social Care (at present there is a £6 Billion deficit across GM). There has to be a GM Strategy for this, each local authority is working on a locality plan but this has yet to be finalised across GM.
There are 12 integrated neighbourhood teams for Health and Social Care. Primary care need to be involved in all services to keep people out of hospital where possible.
GM Mental Health Strategy
Importance of accessing mental health services for our residents. Manchester Health and Social Care Trust is no longer operational. Process is underway to move to a new provider. Need to concentrate on early intervention – particularly in children and young people, “if a child has a psychotic episode aged 12 and it is dealt with in a timely manner there is a 80-90% chance that the child will have good mental health for the rest of their life”
GM Contact
Patients will be able to access beds locally with a will to work in a different way across providers. There are currently 85 pilots in place across GM which haven’t been moved forward or scaled up, this needs to be more cohesive.
Homelessness
There are more rough sleepers in Manchester City Centre now than ever. Some have travelled specifically to the city because of its reputation, some have no recourse to public funds and unfortunately there is evidence to show that the city is attracting a lot of beggars that aren’t actually street homeless and are exploiting the good nature of Mancunians.
Some charities are enabling people to stay on the streets even with good intentions. The culture needs to be shifted. Big Change Manchester is a push for ‘change not coins’. Ask for RP’s to be distributing information as much as possible within and around their organisations.
Action: JS to circulate Big Change information to partners.
Impact on housing – we need more warm, communal, safe houses as a place for people to stay and for support services to come to them.
Housing providers need to be engaged in the locality
Difficulty with moving on people with poor mental health due to lack of support and isolation experienced. Would prefer to share or end up back on the street where they feel they have a community. Dealing with some very entrenched rough sleepers.
Obvious problems that came with being at crisis point with the closure of the night shelters this year. RP’s really rallied around and made fantastic progress when it was needed, can we keep working in this way to avoid the same crisis next year.
Homelessness Charter
Has been to Health and Wellbeing Board, developed in conjunction with The Mustard Tree and ex service users. Will be implemented over the summer with a call to all providers to get involved. / JS
4.2 / A summary of the discussion following the presentation is as follows;
· RL - Housing aspiration over housing need – how do we challenge this?
· HS – Can we get the IHHSC group to have a look at the big picture in the city and report back?
· GC – There is a clear picture emerging from the group that there needs to be more scope to work more smartly. The architecture of groups across the city needs clarifying both in terms of an accommodation offer and support models.
· YMD – There is so much happening and we are getting caught up in the issues surrounding the LHA supported housing cap. We are becoming stuck at the accommodation part and it’s a vicious cycle. What is the answer? Shared accommodation? Can we harness the voluntary sector? VCS in particular supported the night shelters.
· RF – Is there a model for peer support?
· HS – Yes for mental health but not for homelessness
· RL – good example in services for older people through age friendly mcr learning from that?
· HS – Homelessness Charter is being led by service users not council
· PN – Are private sector services being involved in discussions?
· HS - People generally tend to hold out for social housing, we need good quality private landlord involvement.
· AB – Homelessness was a major problem in Manchester in the 80s and then it got better. Why is it a problem again now?
· HS – a number of reasons:
- EU migration has led to an increasing number of people in the city with no recourse to public funds
- Beggars in the city are clouding the real numbers
- The city centre has become a magnet for rough sleepers due to media coverage and the fact that there is safety in numbers
- The Salvation Army closed which had est. 80 bed spaces.
· GC – Will Housing Related Support (HRS) be around in 18 months time in its current definition?
· HS – unsure of the answer at the moment, there is a conference in April where strategic plans will be worked out. The Strategic Housing Board will be updated re: preferred provider.
4.3 / Rob Ferguson thanks Hazel for her presentation and informed the room of a refreshment break for 15 minutes.
5. / Presentation: GM Public Service Reform – Strategy and Priorities
5.1 / Jane Forrest, Strategic Lead for Place Based Integration for the GM Public Service Reform Team spoke to a presentation which can be found, for reference, on the MHPP website
5.2 / Due to slightly running over time there was limited space for questions following Jane’s presentation. A summary of the brief discussion is as follows;
· GC – Early prevention services are the ones that have faced the most cuts across GM. These are decisions from individual local authorities which are affecting GM as a whole.
· JF – There is a single framework of reform across GM and an importance of alignment between GM Public Service Reform and Health and Social Care Reform.
5.3 / Rob Ferguson thanked Jane for her presentation. Jane advised that she could be contacted with any further questions.
6. / Presentation: Affording a House in Manchester
6.1 / Paul Beardmore, Director of Housing at Manchester City Council and Executive Director of Manchester Place, spoke to a presentation regarding Affordable Housing in Manchester. It can be found, for reference, on the MHPP website.
6.2 / Due to time constraints, discussion regarding Paul’s presentation was held until the end of the day. Key points are summarised below;
· JC – As mentioned in the presentation, social housing stands at 27% of total stock in Manchester. Is there a desire from the council to drive that down?
· PB – Absolutely not. We would like to support RP’s to maintain the quantum of existing stock. The market is dynamic, there are more people in work which equals more people buying properties. There is a continued drive from government to attack social housing and we all need to adapt to that.
6.3 / Paul Beardmore also fed back to the group regarding his presentation at full council in the morning:
· Rent to Purchase – There is interest in developing a proper, good quality and well maintained model. Many Right to Buy properties are ending up in the private rental sector .
· Presentation was well received and helped by the presence of Karen Mitchell and Charlie Norman. Good focus on vulnerable people.
· Will go on to develop affordable homes strategy which has also gone to the Affordable Homes Task & Finish group under MHPP.
· KM stated that she thought it was positive and showed understanding. It was good to raise awareness.
6.4 / Paul was thanked for his contribution to the event.
7. / Presentation: Manchester Locality Plan Update