Agenda item

The Chairman invited Tamsin Hewett (TH), policy adviser, to introduce the update.

TH gave a brief overview of the Housing Advisers Programme (HAP) and highlighted the following points from her paper:

·       An evaluation survey of HAP indicated that key KPIs agreed with DLUHC had been exceeded for the 2021/22 cohort. Case studies also back up the positive impact of the programme.

·       Worked with LGA regional teams last year to try and identify why some areas weren’t applying for the programme, resulting in targeted support going to 4 areas. Targeting support represents a change of approach for HAP which has historically been council-led.

·       DLUHC are increasingly keen that projects are funded which support direct delivery of new council housing and it is expected that this will be their main focus in 2022/23. This has not historically been the focus for HAP but officers were looking at how this can be incorporated into the programme, perhaps by bringing together groups of councils with similar needs around delivery. Officers are keen that pure housing output does not become the focus of the KPIs with DLUHC.

·       Officers meeting with DLUHC shortly to discuss the next funding round.

Members’ comments and questions:

·       Members asked whether there would be any scope to fund a project exploring the issue of nutrient neutrality which was affecting a number of local authorities and preventing planning applications from proceeding. Dennis Skinner advised that the LGA’s Planning Advisory Service had recently received additional funding to do some work on this issue and he would feed members’ comments back to them.

Decision:

Improvement & Innovation Board noted the update and endorsed the broad approach to agreeing the programme with DLUHC in 2022/23.