Chief executive Amanda Newton tells Housing Today Live ‘We are in a much better place now’ and is aiming to return to regulatory compliance
Rochdale Boroughwide Housing’s (RBH) board has signed off a recovery plan which was launched in the wake of the death of toddler Awaab Ishak in one of its homes following exposure to black mould.
This means the 12,000-home landlord and its auditors KPMG are now satisfied that RBH has completed 163 measures to improve the association’s governance and customer service
Amanda Newton chief executive at RBH, speaking at Housing Today Live in Westminster today, said: “I’ve always been clear that we are on a journey and there will never be a single point where we can say that the work is finished.
“But we can say that there has been a huge amount of change and that RBH is in a much better place than it was.”
Newton, who took over as chief executive of RBH on a permanent basis a year ago today, said the 163 measures “weren’t just words on a page” as they included major work that has “already made a real difference for our customers and their homes”.
She said RBH has carried out a stock condition survey across all its homes, put new plans in place to tackle damp and mould and installed 1,300 ventilation systems and sensors.
In addition, the association has shaken up its governance, following its regulatory downgrade to a non-compliant ‘G3’ rating by the Regulator of Social Housing in December 2022.
She said: “We are a mutual society and the way in which our rules were written disempowered the board from setting strategy and running the business. We have been on an extensive governance improvement programme.”
She said that RBH now has sound and robust governance across the board, the representative body and the senior leadership team, with the right controls in place to meet customers’ needs.
Newton said RBH is working hard to build back confidence and provide assurance to the regulator so that it can return to a compliant governance grading.
She said: “This recovery is so much more than ticking off actions from a plan. It is about restoring trust in the people living in our homes, so they feel safe and confident in their landlord”
She admitted that rebuilding trust and confidence will “take time” and there is more to do. But she said the progression of the organisation has been “significant.”
She said: “Awaab died because RBH didn’t deal with disrepair in the right way. We failed to deal with the repairs in his home because we had a policy of not carrying out repairs where a legal process had commenced.
“We will never forget what happened, or that a little boy lost his life as a result of failings in RBH and failings across the health sector. We remain devastated.”
Newton said she goes out to RBH’s estates most weeks, and “very focused” on understanding the 28,000 people that live in RBH’s home.
A member of the audience asked Newton about the importance of the Regulator of Social Housing’s competence and conduct standard. She said she is “very supportive” that housing professionals should be qualified for the roles they do.
However, on the housing qualification requirement, she said “I do wonder whether it’s pitched at the right level and whether or not we should be looking at it being further into the organisation”. Newton added that competence and conduct “are both important but they aren’t the same thing”. She said conduct is about culture and behaviour, which are everyone’s responsibility.
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