Area Board Meeting Minutes

Shepway Area

Wednesday 29 June 2011 6 pm

Dymchurch Village Hall,

Orgarswick Avenue,

Dymchurch TN29 0NX

Present:

Area Board Members:

Xenia Smart, Mark Ryan, Pam Fry, Sharon Gasson, Harry Hale, Martin Wakefield, George, Alexander, Eleanor Harwood, Sue Willsher, Lisa Hunt, Graham Blackman, Bruce Jones, Brendan Madden

East Kent Housing:

Brendan Ryan, Keith Cane, Jonathan Hicks, Foronda Smith, Lynne Sims, Cllr Alan Ewart-James, Rebecca McGuinness

Shepway District Council:

Bob Porter, Cllr Keren Belcourt

Observing:

Betty Garfield, Lesley Forbes, Graham Frost, Jan Hatcher, Rob Needham

Agenda item Action

1. Welcome, introductions and apologies

Xenia welcomed everyone to the meeting as Chair, apologies received from

Elaine Bostock and Dave Murphy.

2. The role of Area Boards:

• Operating arrangements and Terms of Reference
• Keith Cane gave a summary of the report. There was a discussion about the

The Council Perspective

• Bob Porter and Cllr Keren Belcourt outlined the roles and responsibilities of
• the Council under the terms of the management agreement. Bob explained how important it is for the Council to attend Area Board meetings to listen to what tenants and leaseholders have to say about the service they receive from East Kent Housing.

3. Matters for scrutiny:

• Performance report
• The board agreed that they were happy with the format of the report. The board would like the performance information they usually receive from Landlord Services included in the report.
• Tenant scrutiny arrangements
• Foronda Smith outlined all of the scrutiny arrangements the board are already involved in. There will be scrutiny training for all board members; the first training event will take place in September.
• Scrutiny review programme

The board were asked to suggest a service area(s) for their initial scrutiny, the

board suggested the out of hours service provided by Lifeline.

EKH

4. Matters for information and consultation – East Kent Housing:

• Draft Equality and Diversity Policy and action plan
• Jonathan Hicks present the draft Equality and Diversity Policy to the board, there was a discussion around this, no amendments were made.
   
• Draft Complaints, Praise and Suggestions policy
• Jonathan Hicks presented the draft Complaints, Praise and Suggestions policy to the board, there was a discussion around this, no amendments were made.

• Annual reports – consultation on form and content
• Foronda Smith gave an update on the informal board meeting held on ednesday 22 June 2011 about the Annual Report. Copies of the improvements and local offers suggested at the meeting were circulated. The board are due to meet again on this subject on Wednesday 6 July. A display board of various report styles was presented at the meeting for board members to make comment on and to select their preferred style(s).

•  
• Developing the Delivery Plan 2012/13
• Brendan Ryan gave a summary about developing the Delivery Plan. Copiesof the timetable for developing the Delivery Plan 2012/13 were circulated atthe meeting.

• Forward Plan of EKH board

Noted

5. Matters for information and consultation – Shepway District Council:

None

6. Matters to be referred to EKH board:

None

7. Date and time of next meeting:

Wednesday 28 September 1:30pm venue

AOB

Betty Garfield was asked to draw the winner of the count the logos competition which featured in issue 1 of the East Kent Housing Magazine – the winner of the £25 prize is Mr Carey fromn Naseby Avenue.