Landlord Assurance Board consultation 2024

Consultation closes: 2 February 2025
Consultation opened: 20 December 2024

The Landlord Assurance Board will:

• review how well we're meeting regulatory standards, including progress on improvement plans and tenant satisfaction measures
• oversee how complaints are managed, ensuring lessons are learned from any issues, including decisions from the Housing Ombudsman
• ensure tenants' voices are heard in decisions, making sure their views influence service improvements
• review the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget, investments in new homes, and the delivery of housing programmes, ensuring they are financially viable and on track
• review certain housing-related contracts to ensure value for money and quality before decisions are made by the Executive
• review performance in key areas like neighbourhood management, anti-social behaviour, and tenancy management, identifying improvements and ensuring actions are taken

More in-depth information is outlined in the draft Terms of Reference (PDF).

How the Landlord Assurance Board will work

Membership

We propose that the board will have a Chair and Vice Chair – one Councillor and one tenant. Each will be elected by the members of the board.

The rest of the board will be made up of:

• 5 Central Bedfordshire councillors
• up to 8 of our tenants or leaseholders, who will represent the views of all our tenants

There will be certain criteria for people to become a board member, including that they:

• must be at least 18 years old
• must be a named tenant of Central Bedfordshire Council
• have lived in their home for a minimum of 12 months

We will make every effort to ensure the board represents the tenant profile in Central Bedfordshire, and hope to involve tenants with experience or interest in areas including, construction, health and safety, social work, finance, law, business, or community organisations.

Joining and leaving the board

There will be an application process for people to join the board. To begin with, an independent organisation will manage applications on our behalf. Once the board is established, members will be responsible for setting up a future recruitment process and recruiting new members.

We will publish more information about recruitment in 2025.

Applications may be declined if there is a significant conflict of interest or if the applicant does not meet the eligibility requirements. Any rejected applicants will be informed in writing.

Board members must inform us if they no longer meet the membership criteria; if a board member stops being a tenant, they will no longer be eligible and must step down.

Tenant membership policy

The tenant membership policy sets out the rules and guidelines for joining the Landlord Assurance Board to ensure the process runs smoothly and fairly, helping the board to effectively represent tenants' views and needs. The policy will be reviewed every 12 months.

Board meetings

The board will meet 6 times a year, with meetings lasting around 4 hours. Board members will need to be able to spend up to 2 hours reading papers in preparation for each meeting.

Meetings will be public, with the dates and times publicly promoted. Board members will be required to attend meetings in person, which will take place at our headquarters in Priory House, Chicksands.

Members will be given an induction to the housing service before attending their first meeting.

More in-depth information is outlined in the draft Terms of Reference (PDF), and in the draft Tenant Membership Policy (Word).