Social housing provider states it has made ‘significant progress’

Just over a year on from when it was criticised in a coroner’s report after the death of Awaab Ishak – Rochdale Boroughwide Housing says it has made significant progress.

In December 2022, RBH was put into special measures following an investigation into the death of the toddler as a result of exposure to damp and mould in his Rochdale home. Since then, the organisation has been on a ‘significant journey’ to improve operational effectiveness and deal with a significant backlog of investment in existing homes.

RBH has submitted a report to Rochdale Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee with Amanda Newton, CEO and Kevin Brady, chair of the board expected to attend the meeting on 21 May to discuss its findings.

The report highlighted how the investigation into Awaab’s death in 2020 sparked a complete refocus which involved the removal of the then chief executive and the appointment of an interim leader to start the business on its recovery journey.
 

Read more: Gareth Swarbrick sacked by RBH board in u-turn after previously backing the chief exec to stay in positionPublished: 20 November 2022

 

 

Amanda Newton, RBH chief executive, said: We’ve made significant progress on delivering the commitments in our recovery plan over the past year and in the eight months since I joined RBH as chief executive.

“We’ve now inspected almost every home to understand where we need to invest and have continued to have an unwavering focus on dealing with damp and mould.  We are addressing the root causes of damp and mould by investing more in roofing, guttering, pointing, and windows.”

The board, which was replaced in its entirety, will lead and govern the organisation facing a significant recovery journey. The recovery plan has been put in place to ensure those changes occur.

This recovery plan has five key themes: governance and leadership; achieve and maintain high quality homes; tenant involvement and empowerment; rebuilding trust; and learning lessons.

A key part of these changes centred around tackling the damp and mould problems head on, inspecting every single home under their authority.

“Undertaking a full stock condition survey across all homes owned by RBH,” the progress report read. “This was complete by the end of March 2024 apart from a small number of homes where we continue to try and gain access.

“This is informing our investment priorities and enabling us to deal with immediate risks in customer’s homes.”

Also included in the improvement plan was reviewing their improvement service; heat mapping houses with issues to understand root causes; including customers on the customer services committee; meeting regularly with customers, councillors, MPs and wider partners; and rebuilding a culture centred around customer satisfaction.

Last year £45m RBH invested into its housing stock to be used over a five-year period. This is going towards improvements to every aspect of their homes. During this five-year period, there is a freeze on government funding until housing improvements have been made.
 

Read more: RBH to spend £45m on improving homes and pauses plans for College BankPublished: 19 May 2023

Amanda Newton continued: “Last year, our board approved the investment of £45m in our homes over a five-year period. We are in the process of delivering these works that include renewing kitchens, bathrooms, and heating systems.

“As part of work, 3,978 of our homes have already received improvements over the past year with the support of the Social Housing Quality Fund – a total investment of £2.5m of which £1.85m was grant funded. We are also investing heavily to modernise our independent living schemes.

“We’ve set out in our new corporate strategy how we will refocus our efforts on core landlord services, and in the past year we have completed over 90 percent of the actions within our recovery plan. Over the coming months our aim is to deliver this recovery plan in full.

“This will help us to provide assurance to the Regulator of Social Housing that we have done what we said we would do to achieve compliance.

“We are very aware of the need for more homes. We made a commitment to pausing the development of new homes for up to five years to allow for much needed investment in our existing homes.

“This commitment remains as we deliver with our investment programme. We know there is more to do, but our customers and our partners are already telling us that things feel different – in a positive way.

“I am confident that we are on the right track and we are committed to making RBH a landlord whose customers are proud to live in our homes.”

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter