Guests included social housing providers, local authority ASB case-workers, health-workers and police officers with one thing in common; they were all keen to learn how their organisations could improve in the current financial climate. Topics covered by speakers at the forum, the third of its kind in the South West, included legislation, partnership working, mental health, domestic violence and drugs and alcohol.
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Andy Moore, Chief Executive of PHA, spoke of the importance of partnership working and the breadth of good practice in the South West. He said: “Tackling ASB is one of the priorities of our customers. It does not happen that often but when it does it can severely affect the quality of residents’ lives. Over recent years we recognised the need to put in more resources and focus and have now doubled our satisfaction in this area. ”He continued: “But there is still more work to be done and we can’t do this alone - partnership work is vital to success. There is a vast amount of good practice in this field and today there will be a lot of specialist advice from our partner agencies.”
The headline speaker was David Campbell, a leading Barrister with Kitsons (Solicitors) Exeter and with a background wealth of experience in dealing with ASB within social housing. He looked at how money could be spent more effectively when handling ASB cases and focused on some common misconceptions about evidence gathering for court hearings.
Richard Potts from the Cornwall (NHS) Partnership Foundation Trust spoke of the stretched resources of all organisations and how they need to work together. His colleague Ian Cleary, Housing Support and Development Co-ordinator, Cornwall (NHS) Partnership Foundation Trust, Community Mental Health Service spoke of the importance of a forthcoming housing strategy for mental health patients. He highlighted the high number of homeless and vulnerable people who do not meet the criteria to hold a social housing tenancy, many of whom end up living in tents.As those speaking before him, he valued the idea of a shared direction of travel to solve the revolving door faced by vulnerable people, especially when support budgets are cut and less help is available.
Paul Carter from the Cornwall Drug Intervention Programme spoke about the work of his team which aims to get drug and alcohol offenders into treatment and to look at the cause and effect of drug related offending.
Chris Grose from the Chartered Institute of Housing gave an overview of the work done by the National ASB Action Team in supporting over 130 landlords nationally to improve their ASB services.He spoke about the common trends in ASB management and highlighted a Community Harm Statement currently being piloted around the country by 15 landlords. “This is proving to be a useful case management tool for landlords which will enable the court to be provided with appropriate and consistent information,” he said.
Speakers in the afternoon session included Inspector Mark Bolt from Devon and Cornwall Constabulary and Julie Bingham, Enforcement Manager for Tor Homes.
The speakers represented a broad range of official agencies and organisations but the overriding message from the day was the same; the importance of information sharing and partnership working to enable positive results in working towards ASB case resolution.
