Friday brief: Staff member responsible for fire safety checks at failing housing provider has departed
Here's our regular end of the week news round up
The chief executive of Northamptonshire Partnership Homes has said the staff member responsible for fire safety checks has now left the company.
NPH’s problems were thrust into the spotlight last month, when it became clear the company, which had been managing the council stock for Northampton since 2016, had not been providing the correct data to its parent company. It had over estimated the number of homes that were at a decent standard and given inaccurate data about the levels of fire safety checks that had been done on the 800 eligible properties in its stock of 11,400 homes.
The fire checks had also not been done to recommended safety standards.
Speaking to NN Journal recently, NPH chief executive Steve Feast said the staff member responsible for fire safety compliance, no longer works for the housing provider.
He said:
“We investigated that issue and that member of staff chose to leave before we took any action.”
The boss, who joined NPH in May 2023, said the company, which was recently given a C3 grading by the (C4 is the worst grade) is now moving at pace to get homes up to standard and redo all of the fire safety surveys.
He also welcomed the new regulations that have come in post Grenfell as part of the Social Housing Act 2023.
Explaining how the company had been so unclear on just how much of its housing was not to a decent standard - just under a quarter of homes - he said standard practice was that condition surveys were sampled, with the results then extrapolated. He said typically the amount was levelled at 3 per cent in NPH, which was comparable with other providers. NPH is now undertaking a full stock condition survey.
Asked what his part has been in the problems NPH is facing, he said:
“I’m not sure I’ve done anything wrong if I’m brutally honest. What I’ve done is come in and challenged the organisation in the right areas and that’s meant when we’ve worked through our review programme we’ve found issues and that allows us to put them right.”
At the the start of this year he had commissioned a series of reviews, ahead of the new consumer standards coming in, which had ‘uncovered issues’.
“Would we have preferred not to have found these issues? Of course we would. But if issues are out there, you are better off knowing about them, because you can address them and put them right.”
He says ‘nobody came and found these issues’ and NPH and the council referred themselves to the housing regulator. He suspects other housing providers have not been as honest.
He has halved the size of the leadership team since he joined.
He says:
“One of the jobs I did was review my senior management structure. I thought it had a level of resource in it that I did not need, so we’ve taken the resource out and deployed it further down.
“We had four directors who left us in a period between December and the end of March. That was about making sure the structure was fit for purpose.”
Now he has three rather than seven directors who report into him.
After a number of failed development projects the authority has now taken large scale projects away from NPH control. The wasted cost could be as much as £2m.
He says about the failure of promised key worker accommodation at Belgrave House at Greyfriars:
“There was a desire to make the development work and that is completely understandable. When I arrived we looked at the finances of those schemes and they were really challenging. You only genuinely know how much a project is going to cost at the point when you go out to tender. Up until that point you are estimating, but at that point we'd had a pandemic and we'd seen some massive material and trade cost inflators following on from that and the war in Ukraine. So we reported we did not feel the schemes would be financially viable.”
Since the problems have become public he says tenants have been getting in touch about outstanding repairs.
He says repair times have come down significantly in the past 12 months, with tenants now having repairs done within 30 days. A new damp and mould team has been created.
Asked whether he wants to be congratulated for his efforts, he said:
“The only pat on the back I want is when we get the issues sorted.”
News in brief:
The county’s two unitaries have an almost £40m black hole in their school budgets, but the authorities have said the deficits will not sink them.
A growing group of councils could be at risk of bankruptcy if the government makes them settle the deficit by 2026, as is the current plan.
But the Northants unitaries have told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that even though they have large overspends in their school budgets, there is money in the bank to settle the bill if the council calls it in. The schools sector has been underfunded for several years, and there is a lack of special school places in Northants, which has led to the councils having to pay expensive independent school costs and large transport bills.
Leader of NNC, Jason Smithers, added:
“The national pressure on services to support the education of children with additional needs is well documented. Many Councils are struggling to contain expenditure within the budget available to meet needs.
“The mitigation actions that are available often have front loaded costs and benefits are felt over the course of many years. Whilst funding has been increased, this has not reflected the full increase in needs that are being identified.”
The deficit is expected to be more than £24m by March for the North and £14m for the West.
At the recent North Northamptonshire schools forum meeting, the director of children’s services, Charisse Monero, said there had been a ‘substantive’ surge in the requests for education health and care plans (EHCPs), which has had an impact on the high needs block deficit. She told members that the authority currently has 4,200 plans, but that it is forecast to more than double to 9,200 by 2028.
Chief executive of the authority, Anna Earnshaw, told the LDRS that their SEND improvement plan was key to mitigating rising costs.
“Once you start to get into this, because of this massive increase in SEND and EHCPs, any kind of pressure on that high needs block tends to double and double. Would it put us into bankruptcy? At this point no, but it would be a lot to write back on to the general fund if we had to do that.”
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
Police have launched a fresh appeal into the unsolved murder of a Corby nightclub owner.
On December 17, 2012, former doorman Les Ross, 39, was beaten to death in the Village Express hotel in the Jamb, Corby, where he had been living after his home in Chelveston Drive, had been burgled two days before. Less than two weeks previously he had opened nightclub Rubix in Corporation Street.
Detective Chief Inspector Johnny Campbell said:
“David ‘Les’ Ross was a hardworking, popular man who had only just achieved one of his lifelong ambitions to open his own nightclub when he was murdered.
“Although his murder happened 12 years ago, his family continue to grieve for him as if his death was only yesterday and they will be unable to move forward fully without knowing who was responsible for his death.
“A number of arrests have been made in connection with David’s death over the years, but no one has ever been charged.
"We’re not only looking for information regarding who killed David in that hotel room, but also how they were able to gain entry, how they travelled to and from the scene, how his killers may have known he was there, and who was responsible for the burglary at his house two days before he was killed.
“There could have been a lot of reasons why people felt they could not speak to us before now, but 12 years is a long time, and we know that allegiances and loyalties can change.
“I am certain that someone out there knows what happened to David and I am asking them to please come forward and speak to us. If that person is you, please call us on 101, report it to us online at www.northants.police.uk./ro or if you would prefer to remain anonymous, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111
Corby journalist Kate Cronin reported this week that a known criminal has boasted in the past of killing a bouncer.
Approval has been given to build more than 400 new homes on the edge of Towcester.
West Northamptonshire Council’s (WNC) strategic planning members unanimously backed two separate planning applications on Tuesday, outlining proposals to deliver further residential neighbourhoods within the Towcester Vale sustainable urban extension (SUE).
The entire development, which lies to the south of the market town, was given outline permission in 2015 and will bring forward 2,750 homes in total. The newly approved 406 homes will be built on land at the bottom of the SUE, near Wood Burcotte.
Barratt Homes Northampton will be in charge of 160 homes and Persimmon Homes Midlands will take on the remaining 246. Both applications include areas of public open space within the housing developments and the larger parcel will also have an equipped play area for residents.
Disappointment was voiced by councillors at the meeting, who believed that there was not enough provision of affordable homes throughout Towcester Vale.
Cllr Ken Pritchard (Deanshanger, Cons) said it was “astounding” that no measures were set out in the development’s original legal agreement that would allow the council to reexamine developers’ profit margins and ask for the affordable homes requirement to be increased, if possible.
However, members were told by WNC officers that it was the position they were “stuck with” and that there was nothing they could do at this stage to add in a viability review.
Both applications were approved by the planning committee unanimously.
Report by Nadia Lincoln
A 25-year-old man charged with murder after an incident at Flaxwell Corut, Northampton, has been remanded in custody.
Junior Emmanuel Uwadia, aged 25, of Northfield Way, Northampton, appeared at Northampton Crown Court on Monday, on a murder charge relating to the death of Clinton Obeng Oppong Antwi, 23. Clinton was stabbed on December 11, shortly before 5.40pm.
Two other men arrested in connection with the case, aged 22 and 23, have been released on bail pending further enquiries.
Westminster Watch
Corby MP Lee Barron has joined with the family of murdered school girl Collette Gallacher and the Northants Telegraph to ensure Collette’s killer’s parole hearing is heard in public.
Colette was just six years old when she was snatched by Adam Stein on her way to primary school in 1986 and murdered. Her sisters Lauren and Claire Holmes have been campaigning so that sex offenders like Stein, who has twice been released from prison and been allowed to change his name, cannot hide their crimes by living under new identities.
Stein is due for parole in the early new year. Read the Northants Telegraph report
This will be our last post until after Christmas. Will be back in the days before the new year. Happy Christmas everyone and thanks for reading, sharing and supporting.
I’m sorry my grandson is a ‘massive pressure’ on your SEND budget, maybe duty to meet needs and even a desire to meet needs would be better phrased Anna Earnsure..
I'm astonished that the number of education health and care plans (EHCPs) is predicted to more than double from 4,200 plans to 9.200 over the next four years. Is there a significant change in how needy the children are, or have they always had this level of need and we're just getting better at identifying them?