The economic case for investment in social rented homes is made forcefully, based on a detailed analysis by Capital Economics
capital_economics_confidential_-_final_report_-_25_october_2018
Like large swathes of Northampton the homes in Little Cross Street were low-rise and unexceptional 1960,s buildings of just two floors. We supported the plan that would allow for the site to be replaced with more attractive buildings, which also involved creating more homes.
Of course we added a number of caveats i.e. council owned … social rent and a replacement local shop
I think all involved are entitled to announce mission accomplished
Take this £9,999 … no questions asked?
Norman Adams would like to know how the leader of Northampton Borough Council seen it in order to agree that any OR every board member of Northampton Partnership Homes could have £9,999 without any consultation with the council
On the 20/10/2017 the leader of NBC signed ‘New articles of association’ which states:
27.2 Any proposed remuneration of £10,000 or more per annum for an individual Board Member will be subject to prior consultation with the council
Mr Adams would remind councillor Nunn that this is public money that Northampton Partnership Homes would be giving to Board members.
Document in question J Nunn
Northampton Borough Council appreciates OUR 
ongoing interest!
MY email
NBC state…
In line with the ‘going further than the letter of the code’ we aim to publish the October 2018 expenditure data by 20 November 2018.
As it is now 28 November when can we expect publication?
THE REPLY
Norman, I appreciate your ongoing interest in this area however it is likely on this occasion that the data will not be available for publication until January.
I have had the October spreadsheet from finance since the first week of November, however following a recent FOI request we have identified additional finance data that needs to be published in this and some earlier reports. I’m currently working with our LGSS finance team to update the report process to ensure this additional data is included going forwards and can be applied to some of the older expenditure data as well. This is quite a large piece of work involving report rewriting, redaction and republication of 18 to 24 reports within the current combined expenditure data sheets.
As you know I strive to publish the data more often than the transparency code requires however at the moment there is no point publishing the report for October when I’m working with finance on an updated version. I am therefore waiting until all the revised reports are completed before republishing. I have every hope that this will all be completed before the statutory quarterly publication deadline of 20th January.
Data Protection Officer
Corporate Governance and Risk
The Guildhall
St Giles Square
Northampton
NN1 1DE
You may become aware of Mr Adams shouting “Transparency my Arse”
This is to inform you of the issue
My current understanding is that two councillors (of Northampton Borough Council) chair committees of its Housing ALMO
Currently the ALMO is refusing to confirm if chairs of committees are paid and if so how much
My current understanding is that;
The Local Authorities (Companies) Order 1995 places restrictions on the
level of payments to councillors who sit on boards of local authority controlled
companies. Under the Order, councillors cannot be paid more by the
company than they would receive from the local authority for carrying out
comparable duties.
Currently NBC chairs of committees are paid
| Rates payable to NBC councillors are 2018/2019 as follows: | |
| Chair of the overview & scrutiny committee | £6211.80 |
| Chair of the planning committee | £5324.40 |
| Chair of the licensing committee | £5324.40 |
| Chair of the standards committee | £2662.20 |
And of course ANYONE can via published documents link this back to an individual – that is transparency
I have contacted the Data Management Officer at Northampton Partnership Homes to try and resolve my complaint on this issue.
If it is NOT resolved at that level to my complete satisfaction, I will then use my right to complain to the Information Commissioner.
The net cost of accommodating homeless households in temporary accommodation has increased dramatically in recent years and is placing a huge strain on the Council’s budget. The current forecast is that, in 2018/19, the temporary accommodation budget could be overspent by around £1.7m.
The severe shortage of affordable housing and a large increase in the number of requests for assistance under the homelessness legislation have resulted in a sharp rise in the number of homeless households that the Council has had to place in temporary accommodation.
Between March 2016 and March 2018, the number of households living in temporary accommodation more than quadrupled from 66 to 267 and, by the middle of September 2018, it had increased to 305.
Extended stays in temporary accommodation can cause severe hardship for the households involved, especially those households (including families with children) that are placed in Bed & Breakfast outside of the Northampton Borough because there is no other temporary accommodation available.
As the Council is only able to recover part of what it pays housing suppliers for the temporary accommodation it uses, extended stays and an increase in the number of placements are putting a huge strain on the Council’s budget. See Paragraphs 3.2.6 – 3.2.8 and Paragraph 4.2.4 for further details.
3.2.6 Based on an average net cost of £29 per night for Bed & Breakfast and £26 per night for self-contained nightly purchased accommodation, the average cost of accommodating each household for an extra 56 days in temporary accommodation will be between £1,456 and £1,624.
3.2.7 In the middle of September 2018, there were 197 homeless households living in self-contained, nightly-purchased temporary accommodation and 45 homeless households living in Bed & Breakfast.
3.2.8 Assuming that the Housing Allocations Scheme remains unchanged and that, each year, the same number of households are placed in self-contained, nightly-purchased temporary accommodation and Bed & Breakfast and they each spend an extra 56 days in temporary accommodation before they are rehoused, the extra cost to the Council could be nearly £360,000 per annum.
4.2.4 The net cost of accommodating homeless households in temporary accommodation has increased dramatically in recent years and is placing a huge strain on the Council’s budget. The current forecast is that, in 2018/19, the temporary accommodation budget could be overspent by around £1.7m.
Public health funerals are funerals in the United Kingdom paid for by the local authority, where the relatives are either unwilling or unable to pay, or where no relatives can be found.
Public health funerals in England and Wales are governed by the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984. Local authorities are obliged to arrange a funeral where no arrangements are being made or have been made. Local authorities are permitted to recover the costs of such funerals from the estate of the deceased under the Act.
In some circumstances where a person dies in hospital the relevant NHS trust may arrange a funeral for the deceased; however, ultimately the duty to arrange the funeral rests with the local authority.
Note to Northampton Borough Council and it’s ALMO Northampton Partnership Homes
My current understanding is that in the period from 7th February 2016 to 3rd November 2017 a number of Northampton Partnership Homes tenants died and thirteen of the late tenants had public health funerals, the next of kin for all of them were traced, BUT it needed a tracing agent to find four of them?
Are you making the endeavours to capture such information as next of kin on your tenants (or are they now called customers) so that tracing agents were not needed?
Mr Norman Adams – August 2018 – Northampton
