Scottish Housing Regulator- 2021-22 Annual Assurance Statement
North Lanarkshire Council · 31 August 2022
Back to Housing Committee — 31 August 2022 and its agenda
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North Lanarkshire Council Report Housing Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☒ Yes ☐ No Ref SL/LS Date 31/08/22 Scottish Housing Regulator: 2021/22 Annual Assurance Statement From Stephen Llewellyn, Head of Housing Solutions E-mail llewellyns@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 01698 274192 1. Background 1.1 The SHR was empowered by the Housing Scotland Act 2010, and has since 1 April 2013 possessed statutory powers to monitor, assess, report, and intervene (as appropriate) based on the performance of any Social Landlords in Scotland. 1.2 Since April 2019, Social Landlords in Scotland have a statutory annual obligation to produce an Annual Assurance Statement relating to the previous financial year by 31 October each year. North Lanarkshire Council has adopted a process whereby the statement requires to be presented to Committee and is signed by the Convener of Housing prior to submission to the Regulator. These statements are published for every landlord, as well as each landlord making them readily available to all their tenants. 1.3 From the information submitted on our Annual Return on the Charter (ARC (Annual Return on the Charter)), the SHR publishes a landlord’s report including data from all local authorities to committee in a separate report. Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to seek committee approval on the sign off relating to the third Annual Assurance Statement as detailed at appendix 1, prescribed by the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR). Recommendations It is recommended that committee: (i) Note and approve the contents of the report and ratify the signing of the Annual Assurance Statement by the Convener of Housing. The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Improve the health and wellbeing of our communities Ambition statement (1) Ensure a housing mix that supports social inclusion and economic growth
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2. Report 2.1 The service requires to comply with the regulatory requirements set out in Chapters 3 and 5 of the Scottish Housing Regulator Framework (appendix 2). To ensure that compliance is met the service has appropriate and effective mechanisms in place to support the signing of this year’s Annual Assurance Statement. These processes and actions continue to be maintained, monitored, reviewed, and updated if required on a regular and ongoing basis. 2.2 Within Business Development and Support, the team manage and monitor a comprehensive portfolio where it is deemed there are adequate and effective controls checks and review mechanisms in place. In addition, an evidence base is held including items such as minutes of internal and external meetings held, base and formulated performance data, including full worked examples of performance measures, full procedural guides, and process maps, completed audit reports and copies of reports submitted to this and other council committees. 2.3 Examples of some of the key measures in place are detailed below: • Submission of the ARC by 31 May each year to the Scottish Housing Regulator • Annual ARC action plan including senior management review meetings • Review, action, and response to any issued SHR risk assessments • Production of an Annual Performance Report based on the ARC return in conjunction with the Tenants Federation • Statutory and non-statutory benchmarking exercises • Monthly performance monitoring including review and scrutiny by the Head of Housing Solutions and senior management to review all key performance indicators • Internal target setting and monitoring of performance outcomes • Complaints monitoring and handling system • Regular improvement group meetings for individual areas of business • Four weekly financial monitoring and budgetary control reporting of capital and revenue expenditure aligning with the council’s financial regulations • Adherence with the council’s contract standing orders • Service led audit reviews and inspections • Care inspectorate reviews and reporting • Management of public protection matters through the MAPPA (Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements) process • Detailed procedural guides and process mapping within all parts of the service • Formalised committee reporting cycles and submission of relevant reports • Reporting on the Plan for North Lanarkshire • Whistleblowing arrangements / policy • Equality and Human Rights • Audit Scotland 2019 Best Value Audit report outcomes. • Production of our Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) 2019/20 – 2022/23 • Production and monitoring of the Housing Asset Management Plan • Production and monitoring of the Local Housing Strategy • The Plan for North Lanarkshire / strategic frameworks • Regular contractor review meetings • Update and review of new / all items in service and corporate risk registers • Data Protection/GDPR reporting and monitoring framework in place • Tenant participation strategy, including tenant scrutiny and performance review • Internal and external audit reviews
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2.4 The Scottish Housing Regulator has also intimated that legally we must: “notify them during the year of any material changes to the assurance in our Annual Assurance Statement” including any areas of non-compliance. There are no areas of non- compliance to report for 2021-2022. 3. Measures of success 3.1 Submission and maintenance on an annual basis of an approved Annual Assurance Statement within the required timescales will be classed as a measure of success. 4. Supporting documentation 4.1 Appendix 1 2022 Annual Assurance Statement Appendix 2 Chapters 3 and 5 of the SHR Framework Stephen Llewellyn Head of Housing Solutions
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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒
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If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.9 Risk impact Is there a risk impact? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g., Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed? The completion of both the annual ARC and Annual Assurance Statement are statutory requirements and failure to submit on time is a risk and as such these are incorporated into the services overall risk register.
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Appendix 1 North Lanarkshire Council Annual Assurance Statement 2022 We can advise that: • we comply with all the regulatory requirements set out in section 3 of the Regulatory Framework • we achieve all the standards and outcomes in the Scottish Social Housing Charter for tenants, people who are homeless and others who use our services • we comply with our legal obligations relating to housing and homelessness, equality and human rights, and tenant and resident safety. Equalities We can provide assurance that we have a plan in place to allow us to implement an effective approach to collecting equalities data and are considering how we can adopt a human rights approach in our work. We have reviewed and noted the guidance in the Collecting equality information: National guidance for Scottish social landlords, issued in August 2021 and have agreed our approach with our corporate equalities group to ensure consistency across our Authority. We confirm that we have seen and considered sufficient evidence to give us this assurance. We approved our Annual Assurance Statement at the meeting of our Housing Committee on 31 August 2022 I sign this statement on behalf of the Committee. Convener of Housing Date:
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