Notting Hill Genesis recruits Livv chief executive to its board as it aims to regain compliance

Notting Hill Genesis has recruited Léann Hearne to its group board as a non-executive director as it seeks to regain regulatory compliance.

The 60,000-home London landlord has drafted in Hearne, who is chief executive of Merseyside landlord Livv Housing Group, to chair a sub-committee with responsibility for monitoring its improvement plan.

NHG is seeking to improve its governance after being downgraded to a non-compliant ‘G3’ governance grade in November. A regulatory inspection issues of concern with its business planning and risk and control frameworks that led to ‘poor outcomes’ for tenants.

Hearne, who is also vice-chair of Yorkshire Housing Group, oversaw Livv’s return to top ‘G1’ and ‘V1’ grades for governance financial viability. A spokesperson for NHG said Hearn has supported three other chief executives as their organisations improved from ‘G3’ to ‘G1.’

Hearne is also chair of Liverpool City Region Housing Association Partnership, strategic lead for the Knowsley Better Together Partnership and a board member at the Northern Housing Consortium. She has previously been an executive director at The Riverside Group, director of operations at ExtraCare Charitable Trust and vice chair of Futures Housing Group.

The Regulator of Social Housing’s judgement for NHG in November also found failures against the new consumer standards including a substantial backlog of overdue fire remediation actions, a lack of data on whether legal requirements had been met in a large number of third party managed buildings, a repairs backlog and a lack of accurate data with only around half of homes having had a survey in the last five years.

RSH said at the time NHG is taking steps to improve its approach but described the scale of improvement needed as “significant”

Chief executive Patrick Franco added: “The regulatory judgement acknowledged that we had already introduced changes across the organisation to drive improvement in the longer-term and had started to see progress.

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“I am confident that Léann’s leadership of our new compliance sub-committee will provide constructive challenge and guidance to ensure we maintain momentum in our ongoing drive to become a more resident-focused organisation.”

NHG has previously issued a lengthy statement outlining the work it is doing to improve a range of areas, including board skills, risk management framework and board oversight of health and safety. It is also working to improve its legal compliance of external managing agents, fire remediation actions, repairs and maintenance, understanding the condition of its homes and listening to residents.