Lambeth Housing Partnership
Lambeth Housing Partnership Memorandum of Understanding
January 2020
Lambeth Housing Partnership – Memorandum of Understanding January 2020 1
Lambeth Housing Partnership
Contents
1. Introduction 3 2. Vision 4 3. Principles 5 4. High Level Objectives 6 5. High Priority Work Streams 7 6. Leadership and Delivery Arrangements 8 7. MoU Governance Arrangements 9 8. Review 9 9. Signatories 10
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
1. Introduction
Andrew Travers (CEO – Lambeth Council), Councillor Paul Gadsby (Cabinet Member for Housing), and the Lambeth leadership team want to build strong partnerships between public, private and third sector organisations in the borough. Partnership is more important than ever and by working together we can provider better services, innovation, and investment.
The creation of the Lambeth Housing Partnership will help us work more closely together to find more effective and cost efficient ways of providing services and collaborating to deliver the objectives of the Borough Plan.
This understanding (MoU) is between:
Lambeth London Borough Council London and Quadrant Housing Trust Metropolitan Thames Valley Network Homes Notting Hill Genesis Optivo The Hyde Group The Guinness Partnership Limited The Peabody Group Wandle Housing Association Ekaya Housing Association
This MoU sets out how Lambeth London Borough Council (the Council) will work in partnership with local Registered Providers (Lambeth RPs) through the Lambeth Housing Partnership (LHP).
The MoU includes a ‘Lambeth Housing Partnership Plan’ (LHPP) that will be completed by March 2022 which will set out the enhanced strategic outcomes and delivery resulting from deeper collaborative working. The plan also captures the enhanced outcomes and outputs that both parties will make to meeting needs and aspirations in future, whilst providing scale and flexibility in order to respond to future local challenges.
All Parties agree to act in good faith to support the objectives and principles of this MoU for the benefit of all Lambeth residents. All Parties to this MoU recognise that individual Housing providers will take decisions on the extent of their role in implementing the LHPP in line with Section 7 of the MoU.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
2. Vision
Future Lambeth: Our borough plan is the council and our partners' vision and priorities up to 2021, building on the enormous improvements that have been made across Lambeth in recent years.
It sets out three strategic priorities that all partners will work towards in order to make Lambeth a stronger, fairer and more prosperous borough. The Plan sets out our three priorities:
Creating inclusive growth: We want all of Lambeth to benefit from the investment and regeneration of the Borough
Reducing inequality: We want to take action to address inequalities across the borough including issues to do with health, job opportunities and quality of life
Building strong and sustainable neighbourhoods: We want to maintain safe, clean and cohesive communities across the borough
The Borough Plan is about working in partnership to ensure that Lambeth is a great place for everyone. The Council commits and describes its vision for the future partnership working of RPs working across Lambeth as:
Enable Growth and development in the borough. This will provide opportunities for our residents to improve their life chances and make best use of our core revenue streams to help our most vulnerable and our key services.
Ensure that the benefits of growth increase community Resilience, and that we target our investment in early help and preventative services.
Reform the way we commission and deliver services with partners to provide and promote care and Independence.
Promote and support Lambeth as a Place where people want to live, work and invest.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
3. Principles
The delivery of the joint vision will be based on the following principles agreed jointly between Lambeth Council and RP partners:
1. There is a shared commitment to collaboration to create and deliver the outcomes set out in the Lambeth Housing Partnership Plan.
2. We will, subject to GDPR limitations, collaborate to share intelligence and insight, skills, (and by agreement), financial and human resources to deliver greater outcomes in support of the Borough Plan and LHPP. Digital services will be a key enabler to delivering objectives.
3. Spending decisions relating to LHP will be evidenced based and outcomes focused, to deliver real improvements to residents and communities throughout Lambeth.
4. Partners share a commitment to collaborate to deliver services, programmes and interventions to reduce inequality, support vulnerable people, and prevent homelessness in the borough through the provision of suitable and affordable homes.
5. Ensuring our residents have safe and secure homes is at the heart of the mission of all members of the LHP. Partners are therefore committed to collaborating to improve service outcomes and value for money for residents, recognising the pressures on all landlords’ business plans in balancing investment in existing stock and neighbourhood services, whilst increasing the supply of new homes.
6. Partners are committed to collaborating to make the Borough a safer place, by reducing violence in all its forms with a focus on serious youth crime. Tackling the causes of anti-social behaviour and making community spaces places where people can enjoy a good quality of life.
7. Partners share a desire to aim to using, conserving and enhancing the community's resources so that the total quality of life, now and in the future, can be increased without compromising the health of the environment.
8. Partners will work together to create opportunities for training and employment for young people and adults, to reduce inequality of access.
9. The overall quantum of affordable housing including homes at social rent levels, will increase across Lambeth, notwithstanding external political, legislative and market forces beyond its control.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
10. Partners support meeting aspirations as well as need through the creation of pathways to homes of all tenures and financial incentives which remove the barriers, with a focus on Welfare Reform, for lower income groups to be able to operate in the market.
These principles reflect the vision of the LHP and do not supersede the stated aims and principles of individual RPs.
4. High Level Objectives
The following High Level Objectives seek to create social value to area of Lambeth and will be further developed through this MoU:
Inclusive Growth
To explore ways to deliver increased investment and regeneration in the borough, ensuring this creates benefits for residents and communities.
To build on the work RPs do in leveraging the existing asset base, to support delivery of increased new home supply of homes for sale and rent to cross subsidise the provision of affordable housing including homes for social rent.
Leverage the collective asset base and financial capacity of partners to sustain and increase the supply of homes, recognising the independence of individual members, through increased efficiency through collaboration, to secure increases in the supply of homes of all tenures, with an emphasis on affordable homes for rent and sale.
To identify opportunities to leverage external funding (including GLA and central government) to invest in infrastructure, transport and housing in the borough, in support of the Lambeth Plan.
To deliver homes which meet the needs and aspirations of a growing economy and population which is located in the right place, at the right time, and for the right price.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
Reducing Inequalities
To create education and training opportunities.
To address homelessness through integrating housing and health policy and practice with an emphasis on prevention.
To provide support to families and households who are most impacted by Welfare Reform by helping to secure a pathway for them to increase self-reliance and get into employment.
Strong Sustainable Neighbourhoods
To support neighbourhood and place based working to ensure investment and a high quality neighbourhood management in areas experiencing social, physical, environmental and economic stress.
To drive up the quality of housing in Lambeth through reinvestment in the existing housing stock, the provision of high quality new build and collaborative interventions where necessary in the low value Private Rented Stock.
To work with residents to understand what the important attributes of a community contribute to empowering its members and providing community resilience and capacity.
To work together to tackle violence and make Lambeth’s communities places where people can enjoy a good quality of life.
5. High Priority Work Streams
In support of the above objectives a number of high priority workstreams have been identified which will provide the foundations for the Lambeth Housing Partnership Plan including:
Growth and Housing Need: Explore opportunities for partnership working to deliver the Council's housing growth objectives. To identify opportunities development of new homes and regenerate existing estates; provide high quality new homes.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
To build a shared evidence base for building for current and future housing needs across a range of tenures. The process could provide a platform for political engagement on the short, medium and long term needs of the borough and to inform the next update of the Local Plan.
Neighbourhood and Community Safety: To collaborate to review and develop improved shared housing management practise, including allocations, and community engagement models based on resident defined neighbourhood boundaries. Working together to tackling domestic and street violence. Health and Housing Stability: Collaborate to develop access routes for vulnerable households to access to homeless advice and support services/supported housing, health advice, employment and skills.
6. Leadership and Delivery Arrangements
The MoU provides clarity around how partnership arrangements between Lambeth Council and Lambeth RPs will be structured to limit the duplication of effort and simplify communication.
The shared high-level objectives will drive a defined programme of activity across different Workstream groups which will continue to evolve respond to opportunities as they arise.
Participation in all work-stream groups is not mandatory, and providers will self-select in according with their expertise, and the scale and nature of their operations.
LHP members will self-assess their category of participation in Workstream groups based around three definitions, and in doing so will determine their level of membership to this MoU:
Lead: where a Housing provider takes the lead in an LA area or a service area and provides strategic direction around resource requirements to support the MoU objectives.
Support: To be a contributing organisation at a local level or have significant expertise in a specialist service area.
Other: Smaller scale or specialised Housing provider which will participate in areas of activity of relevance to their core objectives and business activity.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
7. MoU Governance Arrangements
It is recognised that different ways of working will be required to achieve the transformational ambitions shared by LHP partners. Governance of the LHP will operate in the following context:
Lambeth RP members will remain within the RSH regulatory framework; RP Boards will retain their core role of determining the strategy and direction of their businesses; The introduction of LHP is intended to harness the skills, experience and resources of all parties around a set of agreed outcome based workstreams to deliver mutually agreed housing and related objectives.
A Steering Group (SG) of lead representatives will be established to monitor and further develop the MoU, and to oversee the delivery of the LHPP by providing:
Leadership, strategic oversight and direction to the LHPP; Coordination of activities through either direct leadership of the priority work streams or support to work stream leaders; Review and accept recommendations from the LHPP work streams; Appraise the impacts of outcomes on Borough Plan, Lambeth and local housing markets; Ensure consistency with the wider programme of activity as set out in the MOU; Provide proactive management of the timescales within the plan.
Associate members will be sought for consultation and input as and when required or requested.
8. Review
The MoU will be reviewed on a three monthly basis by Lambeth Council and Lambeth RPs to ensure the work programme aims are delivered within the timescales set out.
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Lambeth Housing Partnership
9. Signatories
Lambeth London Borough Council ……………….. London and Quadrant Housing Trust ……………….. Metropolitan Thames Valley ……………….. Network Homes ……………….. Notting Hill Genesis ……………….. Optivo ……………….. The Hyde Group ……………….. The Guinness Partnership Limited ……………….. The Peabody Group ……………….. Wandle Housing Association ……………….. Ekaya Housing Association ………………..
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