August 2025

August meeting agenda covered:

Repairs Policy Review - Jason Cannon

Director of Repairs

Rationale for Changes

Policy due for review and update
Aligns with our new way of working
Ensures clarity around our repairs responsibilities for our customers
Reflects current operating environment
Allows LHP to engage with its customers and influence the way we deliver a key customer centric service

Repairs - General Updates

Emerging day planning launch - will drive improved productivity
Van stock reviewed to improve first time fix rate
Awaab's Law - working towards go live date of legislation
Repairs work in progress (WIP) tracking in right direction, developing recovery plan
Review our ways of working and terms and conditions of operatives
Materials supplier procurement progressing

Suggested Policy Changes

Repair priorities - move to 3 defined priority categories
Updating our performance metrics
Awaab's Law - Damp & Mould
Dealing with no access
Conduct of our workforce and sub-contractors
Repairing responsibilities - fencing etc. and how presented to customers
Current legislation and Regulatory Guidance

Questions were then taken regarding views on suggested changes and whether we needed to include/update anything else within the policy

The policy will now be reviewed and sent for approval via LHP Leadership Meeting and LHP Operations Committee/Board.

The updated policy following comments will be circulated to customer forum members for review/reference.

Board Effectiveness Review: Customer Feedback - Jess Hyland

Corporate Head of Governance & Regulation

Jess's presentation covered 2024 Customer Feedback.

General feedback

•Not enough LHP customers get involved - most customer involvement ends at our front door

•The Your Voice platform is not being used by enough customers and that when LHP consults with customers, we don’t give enough feedback on what it’s been heard and what we’ve done with it - one example of this was decent homes. We did not feel we had been given feedback on this

•A perception that the Board are privileged, and the Executive are the same - they don’t know what it’s like to live in social housing or what it’s like to live in Lincolnshire. A perception that these people commute in and are only interested in earning money

Question: What do you expect from an effective Board and what does good look like to you?

•A good Board will listen to customer panel and there could be more interaction between board members and scrutiny panel

•Quite often lots of promises are made, but then actions and timescales for doing things were not clear and a lack of feedback

•Would like the Board and the Executives to go and meet tenants in their own homes, to go and visit voids and see how condition of properties that were being let, and maybe meet customers who have had complaints open for a time

Question: What evidence have you seen that makes you think our Board is effective or not?

•The current chair is much more approachable, very down to earth and interactive than the previous chair who had been quite daunting to talk to

•Observations at Board meetings – it is difficult to understand what is being discussed and we do not know whether the questions or recommendations from CSP lead to change. We currently rotate who attends so there is a lack of continuity as to who gets to receive the papers and hear the discussion.

•Culture concerns –we feel employees are not empowered to do the right thing for customers and numerous processes and policies got in the way of colleagues being able to do the right thing. Employees quite often have an attitude that showed us that they couldn’t care less. They weren’t interested in talking or hearing from customers and that they referred to supervisors quite often to stop doing something and go back to the office

Question: What improvements could we make to ensure effective customer scrutiny?

•We are keen to be more than observers at Board meeting - however require more support to become able to contribute

•The current process of sending a Board pack to the individual customer scrutiny panel member who is attending isn’t working very well - quite often we don’t see the pack when it is sent and then struggle to read and understand in time to attend and contribute.

- Agreed: to give all panel members access to all the Board papers and Governance to attend a panel meeting with a draft agenda to talk through the items and agree which might be ones that they would like to contribute on. Once the papers come out the Panel can ask ELT/CLT questions in advance of the meeting if they to aid understanding

- Agreed: the Chair of the Board be advised which items the Panel would like to say something on in advance of the meeting, to ensure time is allowed at the Board meeting and the Chair can bring them into the discussion

•It would be advantageous for the Panel to have more time to talk to the Chair of Board to ask questions - without any set agenda. We really enjoyed listening to his openness at the colleague conference.

•It would be helpful for us to have a Board Member as our champion to came more regularly to panel meetings and be a go-between and help prepare for board meetings as a mentor or a link between the Board and the Panel

•The Panel mentioned the conversations had with Tpas and that we know of other housing associations where there are customers on the Board they felt this would be something that would be beneficial

•It is important to have a more diverse range of customers involved in governance. In particular, it is important to have some customers to be able to help LHP understand the barriers that disabled customers face. There had been a previous disability forum, but this had been a moaning platform and so was disbanded because it wasn’t very helpful.

Changes made since the last review

Wider Customer Influence:

•Launch of Everyday Better Change Programme with four priorities – Repairs, Data, Customer Influence & Culture

•Board Member trainee programme live with a focus on those with direct lived experience of social housing and / or our communities

•Agreement to include a Customer Committee into the governance committee structure which will include Committee Member vacancies for LHP customers

•Successful positive action to recruit Board Members with disabilities to increase representation of our customers and communities

•Increased opportunities for Board to involve & listen to customers

Improvements to ensure effective Customer Scrutiny:

•Increased support for CSP member attending Board providing a focus on items of interest and time with the Company Secretary to discuss questions and aid understanding

•Board packs shared with all of CSP ahead of meeting for consistency and enhance questions

•Chair advised which items CSP would like to say something on in advance of the meeting to ensure discussion time

•Q&As with Chair, CEO and others at meetings

Board Members observing customer meetings

Still to come...

Wider Customer Influence:

•Launch of Customer Committee (due September with first meeting in November 2025)

•Recruitment of Customer Committee Members and co-design of a development programme to support customers to be effective in their role

•Continuing to take positive action in recruitment of Board Members to ensure representative of the customers and communities we serve

•Launch of updated Board reporting to enhance customer impact, insight and influence in decision making (due September)

Improvements to ensure effective Customer Scrutiny:

•Review appointment of Board Champion to engage with CSP and Customer Forum

Jess then asked what impact has been seen so far from these changes and Panel collectively stated they hadn't as of yet.

Panel also voiced how Facebook is an excellent communication platform and should be utilised more, as it is used by a wide audience covering all different age groups. Panel stated LHP need to post more often about different subjects and consider looking at creating Facebook groups to create more interaction.

Damp and Mould Policy Review - Matthew Fell

Compliance Manager

Matthew explained how the policy needed to be updated to reflect the operating changes, including reference to new legislation - Awaab's Law.

Rationale for Changes

•Policy due for review and update (2025)

•Aligns with our new ways of working with the upcoming introduction of Awaabs Law

•Ensures clarity around our responsibilities in relation to damp and mould for our customers

•Reflects current operating environment

•Allows LHP to engage with its customers and influence the way we deliver a key customer centric service

Damp and Mould General Updates

Increased resource to planning team - this will drive improved productivity and efficiency
Van stock reviewed to improve productive time for our operatives
Awaab's Law - working towards go live date of legislation (27/10/25)
Damp and Mould case work in progress and tracking in right direction, recovery and resource plan completed and under review
Review of our ways of working and terms and conditions of operatives
Materials supplier procurement progressing

Suggested Policy Changes

Awaab's Law - Damp & Mould
Updating our performance metrics - to include emergeny D&M related works
Policy length reduced, keeping information concise and east to follow
Dealing with no access
Conduct of our workforce and sub-contractors
Repair responsibilities - Damp & Mould and how information presented to customers under guidelines of Awaab's Law

Matthew then took comments and questions from Panel on their views of the suggested changes.