Housing Support Group

A list of all services that are provided under the Housing Support banner.

The Housing Support Group is a group of smaller teams in the housing management division of the Housing and Adult Social Care Directorate. They are:

• Tenancy support team - TST is a team of support workers offering support to tenants and residents whose homes may be at risk due to mental health problems. The TST is managed by the Housing support services co-ordinator who also aims to improve links between housing services and support services within and outside the Council.
• Performance support team – this includes: The housing investigations team which carries out tenancy checks, carries out checks to makes sure requests to take over tenancies meet the necessary criteria and investigates unauthorised occupancy and housing fraud. They also help the Council gain access to homes to carry out safety checks
• The former tenants accounts team deal with financial matters relating to former tenants, for example if tenants move out leaving rent arrears outstanding the FTA team will try to locate them to ensure the debt is paid.
• The court officers attend court for the Council and prepare court cases. They usually deal with rent arrears possession cases, .
• Rent service team – this team are responsible for rent arrears collection for all Council tenancies.
• Service development team – the team help the management team try to ensure the Council continues to improve services. It looks at what other landlords do and new legislation and government guidance. It helps design staff guidance and training and carries out project work for the housing management division.

The team also supports and monitors the six local tenant management organisations and helps tenants who want to develop new local management agreements.

• Tenant participation team – this team encourages and promotes tenant participation and provides support for tenant representatives and staff who have tenant participation activities as part of their role.
• Welfare rights team – this is a team of welfare rights advisors and a financial advisor. They provide advice about welfare benefits and debt.
  

There are currently 70 staff in the Housing Support Group, including team managers, at a total cost of £2,486,834.

....... a formal assessment of the Groups performance as a whole has not been undertaken.

The annual budget for the Housing Support Group for the years 2008/9, 2009/10, 2010/11 and 2011/12.
2008/09 £2,871,240
2009/10 £5,223.740
2010/11 £6,264,755
2011/12 £4,096,244

The group is funded by the Housing Revenue Account with the exception of the Tenancy Support Team that is funded by Mental Health Commissioning using the General Fund.

The client group the funding is aimed at and the criteria for eligibility:

The criteria are self explanatory relating to the titles of each individual team, with the exception of the Tenancy support team which is health related.

Between 2009 and 2011, the Customer Services provision for all five District Housing Offices was included in the group, and the Rent service team together with the Former tenants accounts team joined the group in 2010.

The reason for Camden Council not carrying out assessments of this service:

...... because the council has no formal review mechanism for team performance at this level.
(Ref FoI request)
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http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/housing/general-housing-information/supporting-people/supporting-people.en

Supporting people

The supporting people programme, which provides housing-related support services to vulnerable people in Camden, is no longer delivered by a single team.

Housing related support services

• services for young people (the ‘young people’s pathway’) are commissioned within children schools and families
• services for older people, people with mental health problems, and people with learning and/or physical disabilities are commissioned within the strategic planning and joint commissioning division of housing and adult social care
• services for single homeless people with support needs, homeless families, people with substance misuse problems, rough sleepers, ex-offenders and women escaping domestic violence (hostel pathways services) are commissioned within the needs and resources division of housing and adult social care