Partnership VisionDavid Taylor, Midland Heart Nikki Sinclair, Sandwell MBC

The next 30 minutes

• Give you some background to the partnership.

• The challenges in moving forward.

• Bring the partnership objectives to life by sharing some initial findings.

The light bulb moment

•Currently a lot of duplication

•A common objective

•A willingness to work collaboratively

and the best bit………

•We would achieve more together than on our own.

The partnership• Formed a West Midlands wide

partnership.• Appreciation of challenges and a

commitment to find solutions to them.• Pooled resources.• A shared objective of meeting

housing need in local areas by working together…..

In other words – making best use of stock.

The challenges – your help needed1. Data collection and analysis.

The challenge for us all is to identify what data is already available and setting up mechanisms to collect and share this and missing data.

2. Removing barriers to make best use of stock.It was recognised a range of issues will need to be addressed to make best use of stock truly achievable. A key element to success is  enabling customers who are under‐occupying to move to alternative accommodation they want. However they can be limited by:

• Allocation Policies.• Stock availability.• Rent arrears policies.

The challenges – your help needed3. New Development opportunities.

A key barrier to encouraging downsizers is the availability of the right type of housing in the right location. It will be important that new housing development is helping with making the best use of stock.

4. Re‐configuration of existing stock.

Best practice has demonstrated that flatted accommodation can be attractive to downsizers. But the experience of many landlords is that downsizers prefer bungalow accommodation. However, this has limited supply and is expensive to develop.

The challenges – your help needed 5. How do we work with the Private Rented Sector.

The Private Rented Sector can offer choice, flexibility and good quality accommodation. We need to find ways of working collaboratively to meet local housing need.

6. Engaging customers and joint promotional campaigns.Can Landlords and Local Authorities work together to identify those customers who will be affected by welfare reform and develop a joint approach to marketing and informing about the impact of the changes.

Understanding the needs and aspirations of our customers is a key element of planning future collaborative working.

Bringing the challenges to life•Started to analyse data

•Really demonstrates how the WMBUS partnership can have an impact

The Data• Data collected across 13 members of the partnership

• Total stock for West midlands Conurbation

• At postcode level but can be as specific as x and y co‐ordinates

• Identify properties that are under/over occupied

• Detail over severely under/over occupied

Total distribution of properties

Total distribution by housing provider

Total distribution by Local Authority

Total distribution by Registered Providers

Total distribution by ward

Severely under occupied

Severely overcrowded

Providers by ward

Providers at a local level

Under occupation at a local level

Overcrowding at a local level

Full Picture