Safe and Warm Homes Working Group Meeting 19 Feb 2014.
Attendees:
Maria WardrobeNational Energy Action – Chair
Shaun Robinson Foundations
Peter ColeingFuture East
Pam WynneDept. Energy and Climate Change
Mervyn KohlerAge UK
Christine TateBritish Gas
Phil HayesDept. Communities and Local Government.
Russell TaylorDept. Work and Pensions & AAA Secretariat
John SimmonsEast Midlands Later Life Forum
William WrightElectrical Safety Council
Rachel WookeyPublic Health England
Observer:James Attree – Law student
Apologies:
Marc PrimarohMcCarthy and Stone
Daniel Walker-NolanElectrical Safety Council
Sarah Davis Chartered Institute of Housing
Sue AdamsCare and Repair England
Carl PetrokofskyPublic Health England
Mark ShoneChief Fire Officers Association.
Amanda NolanCentrica.
Welcome, introduction and previous action points
- Maria welcomed everyone to the meeting andafter brief introductions noted apologies for absence. All previous meeting’s action points had been cleared or would be covered in the meeting.
2.Alliance Update
Russell provided a short Alliance update presentation.
Members of the Working Group can access the presentation by clickinghere
Selected highlights: -
Alliance membership now over 550 with increasing interest from the academic/research and private sector communities.
Twitter followers now over 2400 and growing.
Increasingly the Alliance is starting to feature in a number of significant publications. These include: Moving More, Living More the Olympic Legacy, Public Health England’s Cold Weather Plan and in a recent speech given by the Treasury.
The Digital Inclusion Group has formed a consortium headed by Age UK that is bidding for a share of the Big Lottery’s £15 million digital skills fund.
With increased interest in the Alliance members encouraged to forward to Russell any downloadable resources that they would want to see hosted on the working group’s page.
The Alliance has recently produced an Infographic to help members and non members understand better the work of the Alliance.Click here to download.
AP:1 Members encouraged to consider use of the Alliance Comms channels and provide Russell with blogs/updates that can be shared with Alliance Members and posted on to the web site.
3. William Wright: Electrical Safety Council
The Electrical Safety Council is a UK charity dedicated to reducing deaths, injuries and fires from electrical Accidents
William updated the meeting on the work of the Electrical Safety Council and in particular its campaign to improve electrical safety in the privately rented sector. Highlights from his presentation include.
•An estimated nine million people currently live in the Private Rented Sector (PRS)
•The sector is rapidly growing – almost doubling in size in the decade to 2011
•An estimated 35% of homes in the PRS do not meet the Decent Homes Standard
•One in eleven renting families are living in a home with electrical hazards
The ESC Campaign calls for:-
•Mandatory inspections of installations and supplied appliances for the PRS. Period not exceeding five years.
•Visual inspections more regularly – and on change of tenancy.
•Supply proof to the tenant that the property has been inspected and is safe
AP:2 Members questioned if the 5 year inspection would still hold if during this time there was a catastrophic event. I.e. flood damage. William to consider this suggestion.
William also highlighted the opportunity for members to contribute to
The Department for Communities and Local Government’s review of property conditions in the sector. Click here to download a copy.
The consultation provides the opportunity to comment on:
•Fire and Carbon Monoxide alarms
•Retaliatory Eviction
•Selective Licensing
•How homes are rated and assessed for hazards.
To view William’s full presentation please click here.
The ESC provides a range of booklets and leaflets one of the more popular -
Landlord’s guide to electrical safety can be viewed by clicking here.
To access the full range of ESC leaflets please click here.
4. Shaun Robinson: Foundations
Shaun updated the meeting on the recent launch of the Foundations Independent Living Trust Evaluation Report. The Evaluation was undertaken by SheffieldHallamUniversity.
The Report was formally launched on 21 January with a number of Alliance members in attendance.
The Report highlighted that the service, designed to protect vulnerable people from the dangers of cold homes, had proved highly effective in delivering targeted support quickly and efficiently.
Last winter FILT Warm Homes Service helped more than 6,000 people across 160 local authority areas of England in the space of just five months. Funded by almost £500,000 from the Department of Health, it was led by Foundations and run by its charitable arm Foundations Independent Living Trust (FILT) together with nearly 60 local home improvements agencies (HIAs).
The report found HIAs were “fast and responsive” both in reaching people and in getting essential work done during the cold weather.
As well as home advice, many benefited from low-cost work such as boiler servicing, draught proofing and radiator valves. These are inexpensive jobs which had a “big impact”, and which often get neglected when household budgets are stretched.
SheffieldHallamUniversity’s report highlights the need for commissioners to examine FILT Warm Homes Service “and the benefits their model can deliver”. Under their assessment of economic value the report’s authors identified that at least £2.10 had been levered in from outside sources for every £1 invested in the service by the Department of Health.
To read the full press release click here
To download the executive summary click here
AP:3 Russell will use the Alliance Comms Channels to promote the Report more widely - Including a possible item in AGEnda.
4. Phil Hayes: DCLG
Phil updated the meeting on the latest developments at DCLG and in particular the Better Care Fund. (BCF)
The £3.8 Billion BCF is a single pooled budget to support health and social care services to work more closely together in local areas.
The BCF not only brings together NHS and Local Government resources, but also provides a real opportunity to improve services and value for money, protecting and improving social care services by shifting resources from acute services into community and preventative settings.
It will help and support people to remain at home and avoid the need for people to move into long term care or residential accommodation. Both of which are costly and undermine the ambition of most which is to remain at home, living independently. BCF will be used to help prevention and comes into effect in 2015/16.
The DFG has been included in the Fund so that the provision of adaptations can be incorporated in the strategic consideration and planning of investment to improve outcomes for service users. DFG will be paid to upper-tier authorities in 2015/16.
The Disabled Facility Grant is not ring fenced. This freedom allows LA and their communities to decide the priority of local spending. Members of the local community need however to be working with their LA Health Boards and commissioners to ensure the funding is used appropriately and targeted at the right areas. The statutory duty on local housing authorities to provide DFG
to those who qualify for it will remain.
To support this period of transition DCLG is working with LAs and Home Improvement Agencies to provide training, support and guidance.
Phil stressed the need for LAs, The voluntary, health and housing sectors to work together to deliver the integrated services that are required if the BCF is to be a success.
DCLG has recently invited external organisations to bid for a research contract.Anyone working for an organisation interested in bidding would need to do so via contract finder. Russell can provide more detail if required.
To see Phil’s full presentation please click here
5 Pam Wynne: DECC
Pam confirmed that the Energy Bill has become the Energy Act. This introduces a duty for Government to address fuel poverty. There will be a new target and a new Strategy. Pam confirmed there will be significant opportunities for consultation on the new strategy and will involve and invite members to comment
The Big Energy Saving Network:DECC is looking to see how to better deliver support through networks. They are also looking at community energy groups and how these can be encouraged further and scaled up. The Network will go through formal evaluation and the results will be shared with members of the Alliance.
Maria mentioned that she has been working on the idea of a factsheet or newsletter for the Group’s webpage. Based on a NEA publication the newsletter would be available to all members of the Alliance, but would strip out any campaigning views NEA may hold. Still in draft format it can be viewed here
AP:4 Members encouraged to provide feedback on Maria’s newsletter.
AP:5Members encouraged to produce their own factsheet for the Group’s web page. An example of a factsheet is shown here
6 Members update:
John Simmons reported the significant achievement made in Derbyshire in securing agreement with a range of providers on the possibility of building homes to lifetime standards. John’s update is attached as appendix 1.
RachelWookeyupdated the meeting on the work of Public Health England
Healthy Places (which is run by the UK Health Forum)is a dedicated online resource for public health practitioners and planners working in local authorities which explains the regulatory and policy environment affecting local action to promote healthy communities.
The resource currently covers 5 key themes:
- Healthy Housing
- Alcohol control
- Access to healthy food
- Active communities
- Enabling active travel
The site provides case studies which show how some local areas have used regulatory options to create healthier environments including fuel poverty.
Visit for more details.
PHE is also currently undertaking a survey of all LA leads who previously took part in the warm homes, healthy people initiative. Specifically they want to hear what is now taking place in communities and how funding has been maintained given that previously funding was provided through the warm homes initiative. They are also looking to capture case studies from CCGs trying to highlight examples of good practice in relation to cold and the effects on health.
PHE will be feeding back preliminary findings from its survey of LAs into winter warmth interventions.
Having seen the agenda Marc Primaroh from McCarthy and Stone wanted to share the following with members of the Group
We took it upon ourselves to design all of our flats to lifetime homes standards a few years back, we were already very close anyway so it was only a few minor adjustments needed
From memory I think the main issues were the 300 mm side to door ways and another was finding a realistic build method for internal partitions to ensure there was adequate fixing support for grab bars and the like in the bathroom as a future requirement. Accessible bathrooms was interesting as some of our larger flats have en-suites
We partnered up with Habinteg who gave us some great advice about interpretation of the requirements. We had all of our apartment layouts approved by them as compliant so future proofing our designs. Some matters were an easy win as we only build flats so they always have lift access to all floors and threshold are therefore all on one level.
I’m watching the Local Standards consultations debates closely to see if much of LTH comes into Part M.Some would be a sensible addition/upgrade whilst others perhaps a step too far. Something I put into the consultation debate was to question was it really necessary or indeed practical/pragmatic to enforce very expensive build requirements upon certain home types. For example, house builders building specifically for 1 bed starter homes - why would you need provision for a possible lift when its obviously catering for a specific and specialist market. Similarly other very obvious disabled living features
7. Review and close.
Maria thanked everyone for coming and their contributions.
3 possible agenda items emerged from the meeting.
- DECC to present the Fuel Poverty Strategy consultation document
- The smart meter consumer engagement.
- PHE to provide further updates.
AP: 6 Russell to secure a room for a meeting in early May.
AP: 7Members to submit potential agenda items.
Appendix 1
SAFEAND WARM HOMES GROUP
A report was taken to Derbyshire Partnership Forum by Care and Repair, England outlining issues relating to housing and suggesting ways to improve the living situations for older people. The main focus of the report was of ways to achieve improved integration of services including Housing, Health and Social Care.
The County Council agreed to host a seminar involving a wide range of participants including the health services, local authorities across the county, voluntary organisations and, most importantly local builders and developers.(The initial response by some developers to the invitation was ‘we don’t attend meetings in the day we tend towards breakfast meetings.’. Without thinking the response was ‘ OK’. Derbyshire, in the middle of £157m cuts programme couldn’t provide breakfast, so there was a breakfast meeting without breakfast!!)
The seminar was held in October 2013 with focus on;
- Impacts of poor housing on Health and Social Care
- Impacts of inappropriate housing on people’s independence
- The challenges facing services of an ageing population
- The ways in which improved housing stock in the future could lead to savings for other services
- Lifetime Standards
- Disabled Facilities Grants and adaptations
- Affordable Warmth
70+ people attended the seminar and all stayed from 7-30am until 12-00noon.
There was a consensus of recognition of the need to address the challenge and general agreement, (though not by all), that to continue building properties which will inevitably need costly adaptation later is wrong. The need for better planning was agreed as a priority.
The issue of cost to build to lifetime standards was a major talking point with the additional cost estimates varying between £450 and £7,500. The higher figure was quoted by the builders who explained that things like wider doors are not standard and therefore cost more. The response that ‘if we alter the standard that would bring down the cost’ was not readily accepted! However, it was noted that the higher estimate was not that significant when compared to the cost to local authorities and health when houses needed adaptation or people needed alternative care because their house was unsuitable.
The outcome of the seminar was to create a cross agency working group, under the strategic leadership of the Health and Wellbeing Board to develop a strategic approach to achieve better integration. This group would include builders and developers since they are seen as crucial to the achievement of change.
The group will report regularly to the Health and Wellbeing Board, all Councils in the county, the Accommodation Support Group and the Derbyshire Planning Officers Group.
Aims
•To explore the potential to work in partnership and identify new funding approaches, recognising the benefits of ‘prevention’.
•To explore the issues of Planning services, both locally and nationally, in delivering the Lifetime Homes Standard
•To develop a shared communications and engagement plan in order to effectively influence all stakeholders
•To identify and disseminate good practice and innovation.
Finally, Derbyshire County Council agreed to significant funds being available for adaptations from the Integrated Transformation Fund. This will be monitored by the group
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