Decision details

To approve the recruitment of three supported housing and PRS link officer posts for a fixed period of 3 years by utilising grant funding from the Department of Levelling up Communities and Housing and from the Homes for Ukraine County Council funding.

Costs per year per post: Grade 9 pay point to

Yr 1 £29,438.93 x3
Yr 2 £30,151.95 x3
Yr 3 £31,099.15 x3

All funding for these posts to be obtained in advance of recruitment including IT, training, travel and projected redundancy costs.

Funding has been secured from DLUCH and Derbyshire County Council to fund 3 posts over a fixed 3 year period to form a supported housing improvement team that will work between four local authority areas including, North East Derbyshire, Bolsover, Chesterfield and Amber Valley.

In addition, homes for Ukraine funding is being used to allow us to work within the private rented sector which will include working with landlords and agents in order to increase access to affordable private rented accommodation.

The Governments supported housing improvement programme is likely to be a pre-curser to forthcoming legislation aimed at improving standards and outcomes in the supported housing sector. The team assembled will be a type of task force that will inspect supported housing projects across the partnership area.

Service providers will be held to account for poor standards and for the miss selling of support claimed via housing benefit.

A project located in North East Derbyshire was recently the subject of a Panorama investigation. The new team will be a key tool in the eradication and prevention of unscrupulous service providers within the local and wider Derbyshire area.

In addition to the supported housing work. The new team will have a focus on increasing the supply of good quality affordable private rented accommodation for residents in the partnership area.

The private rented sector is facing considerable demand pressures via conflict resettlement schemes and legislative changes. There is a strong need to shore up supply and to build relationships and support provision to landlords.

The new team will foster good relationships with local landlords and agents to boost supply by helping to develop a solid landlord and tenant offer.

Each local authority could have hosted their own individual posts, however, there will be more benefit gained via a hosting arrangement in terms of team building and service / product formulation.

Both work strands are contained in the Derbyshire Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy. The team will be supported by the homelessness project officer who is also based with NEDDC.