Landlord Panel - 26 November 2025
Location: North Tyneside Council offices, Quadrant, Cobalt Business Park
Attendees
Tenant members – Linda, Patricia, Clare, Marie Christine
Cllr John Harrison, Cabinet Member Responsible for Housing; Cllr Sandra Graham, Cabinet Member responsible for Climate Emergency; Peter Mennell, Director of Housing and Property Services; Dave Foster, Head of Property Services; Toby Brown, Head of Housing Management; Angela Melvin, Housing Engagement Manager
Apologies
Tenant member – Kim
1. Minutes of the last meeting and action log
Notes of the last meeting were agreed.
There was a question from a tenant member relating to the equality and diversity report and staff training, following a national survey conducted by the Stop Social Housing Stigma campaign which found that social housing tenants feel stigmatised. Annual-report-2025-A-Call-to-Action-2.pdf. DF outlined our current approach with staff training is desktop-based, but we are considering introducing a drama-based approach which would see scenarios acted out to show how things can go wrong if an earlier step has not been carried out. This has been very effective when done in the past as it demonstrates to staff the potential impact of their language, tone of voice and attitude.
PM reassured the panel that we are continuing to work on staff training and are keen to know of any issues that tenants may encounter. He will check whether the new phone system will provide an easy option for a tenant to give feedback on how the call handler dealt with the tenant, eg by text message after the call.
It was noted that the ‘Neighbourhood and Community Promise’ is on the agenda today, this represents a name change from the ‘Neighbourhood Strategy’ mentioned on the action log and will be updated for future versions of this.
2. Neighbourhood and Community Promise
The draft Promise had been sent out in advance to the panel and. It had also been shared with the Estates and Communities Panel and Leaseholder Panel during November.
This is a new document for us and work on it began in October 2024 with our Estates and Communities Panel. The draft Promise covers our offer to our tenants, what our services do, how they can be contacted and the two-way relationship we have with our tenants and communities.
We are also working on updated service standards, which will be incorporated into the Promise (these had also been shared at the Estates and Communities Panel for tenant feedback).
JH stated that Cabinet have just agreed the new Council Plan and we need to ensure the Promise document aligns with that. We also have our Tenancy Agreement, and the Promise needs to be consistent with that in terms of terminology and meaning. TB added that the Tenancy Agreement has also been reviewed recently, with involvement of our panels.
A question was asked on how tenants can give feedback. TB explained that we have a QR code, email addresses and phone numbers on our letters. Perhaps we need to be clearer on how people can provide feedback, including non-digital means.
PM said that while we measure complaints, we don’t have a mechanism for recording compliments.
The panel were asked to let AM have any comments or feedback by 3 December, which will inform a further draft that will then be put out for wider consultation via the Our North Tyneside Voice website (paper copies will be available from our six community hubs and libraries).
3. Budget 2026-27 consultation
PM shared a presentation summarising the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget proposals for 2026-27. The HRA is a separate ringfenced budget within the council’s overall finances, meaning rent and housing-related income cannot be used to fund other council services, or vice versa.
The rent cap constrains revenue, with even a small amount having a significant impact over the 30-year business plan. There are also now increased costs due to compliance with new regulation and enhanced inspection regimes, which require more detailed record keeping and staff resources.
Pressures on the budget include:
- Increased pay award, material and contractor costs
- Disability adaptation works
- Increased energy and utility costs
- Recruitment and retention of qualified trades staff
- Rent collection rates
- Decent Homes 2 standard
- Continued focus on quality and safety, including damp and mould issues
The 30-year business plan has been refreshed to reflect the latest assumptions. The proposed 2026-27 budget of £86.1m reflects the Government’s policy on rent increases (+4.8%), with budgets to continue tenancy sustainment measures introduced over the last three years.
It addresses emerging pressures linked to disrepair claims and condensation, mould and damp; maintains the existing Investment Plan of £193m over the next five years; and continues to support investment in new build properties.
The panel was asked for their views on the proposals. Comments were that it was good to stress the new home building and there was recognition of the regulatory requirements. JH commented that it would be good to equate large amounts with what that would actually pay for.
The slides will be shared with the panel.
The HRA proposals form part of the wider council budget consultation, which will start in the next few days. There will be information on the Our North Tyneside Voice website by the end of the week, with a webinar taking place on 10 December which is open to anyone to join.
4. Regular Reports
The panel had been sent these in advance of the meeting, they are also published on the council’s website.
a) Performance Scorecard
This covers high level indicators and demonstrates that performance is quite strong.
DF explained that quality and safety checks are going well, as are emergency repairs. The scorecard indicator for HB12 (Average time taken to repair all empty homes) has now been broken down into two sub-categories after the panel requested this at their September meeting – to show the difference between homes requiring more major work (94%) and those requiring less (6%). Some of the tenants had been part of a group who looked at our empty homes process last week, which involved visiting properties which had just been handed back to us and others that were ready to be re-let.
TB added that the Tenancy Home Visits can spot issues for us to support with, which would include repairs. While the completion rate remains below target for those, completion rates during Quarter 2 (July-September) have increased. Similarly, while year-to-date completion rates for New Tenant Contacts remain below target (33.3%), there have been month on month increases since April 2025 (13%) to September 2025 (54.5%). While these may not always be done within the target time, they are being done.
The panel discussed the layout and content of the scorecard and suggested some improvements, which will be picked up with the data insights team.
b) Complaints Report
This report covers Quarters 1 and 2, April-September, and DF highlighted that some additional detail has been added around the themes and ward areas of the complaints. During this time, 238 complaints were received (197 at Stage 1 and 86 were escalated to Stage 2). A number of these will be due to the Community Protection team becoming part of the service in autumn 2024. We are still responding to the majority within the timeframes required by the Housing Ombudsman.
TB highlighted complaints relating to gardens – the neighbourhood teams are reminding tenants of their responsibilities outlined in the Tenancy Agreement to keep gardens tidy and this has led to some complaints, though these aren’t being upheld.
There were some comments from the panel about compensation amounts and DF explained that this is in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance. If we are at fault, we should be providing appropriate recompense.
Following on from the Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) survey last year, we have placed a focus on learning from complaints. These are increasing nationally, with around 52-53 per 1,000 homes. If that trend was being seen in North Tyneside, we would be seeing over 700 complaints. Doubling our six-month figure, we would be around 560-570 by the end of the year, so that trend is not currently in evidence here.
There was an additional question on whether information on why a complaint was upheld or partially upheld could be included, which will be considered for future reports.
There has been one award of decoration vouchers, 15 financial payments and one rent credit payment. A question was asked on what the circumstances would be for a rent credit to be made, this will be checked and reported back.
Another question from a tenant member was whether we have any repeat complainers. DF replied that we respond to each complaint consistently and each one follows our formal process. We have been doing some deep dives to look into complaints relating to responsive repairs and have noticed that some are linked to how pest control issues are dealt with – so some work with different teams could reduce that. We are also looking at the drama-based staff training mentioned earlier to explore different scenarios and how we handle these.
Our Repairs and Investment Panel could examine some of this in more detail and the panel agreed that would be helpful.
JH asked whether we are being affected by disrepair claims. DF replied that we are, and have paid out around £600,000 since 2023. Disrepair claims were the focus of the Repairs and Investment Panel meeting yesterday, with the tenants considering our proposal to change approach and push back on the claims being made en masse by claims firms who are not acting in the interest of tenants. Our proposal is that we respond by raising a formal complaint and going to mediation. The panel had agreed with this. Disrepair claims are a national issue, costing housing providers tens of millions of pounds which have been diverted away from providing services for tenants.
c) Quality and Safety Report
This is a positive report from Quarter 2, showing 100% compliance for all safety inspections. Progress has also been made with electrical testing, which has increased to over 70%.
We track all Condensation, Mould and Damp (CMD) reports and are compliant with the requirements of the recently-introduced Awaab’s Law. We are continuing to see increased frontline trades and other council staff reporting issues that they see in a tenant’s home when visiting for any reason, including on CMD issues.
Generally, we know where we need to improve and work continues on that. All recommendations from internal and external audit will be followed up. The external audit by Pennington Choices will be shared with the panel once the action plan is finalised and can be provided alongside.
d) Engagement Report
AM outlined the engagement activity which had taken place during Quarter 2, July-September, and updated on that which had taken place since.
The Tenant Engagement Strategy was approved by Cabinet in October and is now published online. The upcoming winter drop-ins have been promoted in the council magazine, via social supermarkets and community venues, and via council teams who work with tenants. AM highlighted the Facebook post has been viewed by over 65,000 people, with 25% in the 25-34 age group, which is currently under-represented with our engagement work.
Four tenants have volunteered to attend the Northern Housing Consortium’s online annual tenant conference on two mornings of next week.
We have started work on a TPAS (Tenant Participation Advisory Service) self-assessment of our engagement work, which covers elements around scrutiny, governance, communications, complaints and resources. This will highlight areas for future focus and will form part of the basis for our 2026-27 engagement planning. The panel will receive further details of the self-assessment findings at the next meeting, in February.
There are currently 682 tenants registered on Our North Tyneside Voice to receive updates on engagement and consultation opportunities. Last November, a check of the demographic information for those tenants who had provided it on the site against that for our tenant population as a whole showed we were broadly representative in many categories. AM will repeat this before Christmas to see if anything has changed and identify under-represented groups.
5. Any Other Business
AM asked that the tenant members send any suggestions for topics they would like to consider in detail at a future meeting.
DF updated the panel that the Tenant Satisfaction Measures survey (TSM) has been carried out over the last couple of months and we are expecting the results shortly. These will be shared with panel at the February meeting.