As part of my work as a councillor I am a member of the housing scrutiny committee.

What is scrutiny?

Scrutiny involve a committee or a number of committees made up of councillors. These committees hold the council’s decision-makers, including external partners such as Primary Care Trusts, to account publicly.

What is a scrutiny commission?

Every year committees agree on areas for in depth investigation and review. For each of these topics an individual commission (a working group) with between three and five non-cabinet councillors is set up.

A commission can look into any area of council services. In the past commissions have looked at topics such as the provision of respite care and how to improve the housing benefit service. To give further examples, recent commissions have looked at the provision for children with special educational needs and equalities and diversity issues.

Why is there a commission on resident participation?

I was previously vice chair of a tenants and residents association of where I used to live. It was my experience that tenants participation differs widely across Lambeth and asked that a commission be set up to look at best practice both within the borough and elsewhere. I was asked to chair the committee and site on it together with Councillors Pete Bowyer and Irene Kimm.

In the past months we have spoke to many groups and individuals both from the community and council officers to hear their views including a visit to a two star authority Haringey to hear about how they do things differently there.

This week has been a busy week for the commission as we step up our efforts. We met with Chris Vaughan, Chair of Leaseholders council to discuss her ideas of what makes Tenants participation works.

Tanzine Ahmed, Director of Olmec, came to speak to us about projects that her organisation had been involved in including ‘Black on Board’ a project with the aim to increase the representation of minority communities at board level in housing.

Both conversations were extremely interesting. Its was clear that training to give people the skills and confidence was key together with outreach work to encourage groups who do not currently engage at this level.

We also visited Chaplin Close in the North of the Borough this week. Chaplin Close is a small sheltered housing community and is inspirational in how tenants participation can work. Councillor Irene Kimm and I were massively impressed by the work of the tenants association which mixed fun activities with the important work that a tenants association does.

Some of the achievements they have include attracting numerous grants and organise regular parties, outings and other social events.

The committee is very large and they work hard to include as many residents as possible. Turn out to committee meetings is high, helped by the fact that it follows a session of Bingo. All members of the committee were extremely vocal and shared with us why they felt their association worked so well.

The association has built close ties with local MP Kate Hoey and Councillor Peter Truesdale. They work with volunteers to help them with administration skills and with the hard work needed to maintain the gardens which are truly beautiful.

It has been my experience that many people are resistant to moving to Sheltered Housing, believing somehow that they will no longer have the independence that they are entitled to. My experience of Chaplin Close is that the residents are extremely independent and through the work of the tenants association the close is a vibrant and beautiful place to live.

Chaplin Close is an exemplary example of how residents participation can work. One of the key elements of the success is that they constantly work to enable more people to have the skills to participate and by actively looking for help from the wider community help enrich the lives of everyone who lives in the sheltered housing.

Some excellent ideas and findings have come out of this weeks work. Lead scrutiny officer Byron Green has worked extremely hard to organise these events and has also pulled together extensive amounts of research that will contribute to to the findings of the commission. I guess I better get back to reading them….