Agenda item 8ii

THE ROYAL BOROUGH OF KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA

TENANT MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION LIMITED

Open

For approval

Board
10th February 2011

Report title: Operations Committee Terms of

Reference- additional responsibility

Authority for decision: The Board is responsible for approving

its committees Terms of Reference.

Recommendations: That the Board approve the insertion of

an additional line for responsibility to
meet RBKCs regeneration fund
requirements.

Regulatory/legal requirements: RBKC require the TMO to have in

place an evaluation process and panel
for the awarding of the Housing
Regeneration Programme funding.

Business Plan link: Developing organisational competence

through enhanced governance

Equality Impact None required on the contents of this

Assessment/comment: report.

Resident consultation: None required on the contents of this

report.

Resource implications/VFM The report proposes an additional

statement: meeting of the Operations Committee
which does place additional time
commitment on its Members.

Risk: Failure to put in place a robust

governance arrangement for the
process could mean the award process
lacks any auditable records and could
leave both the Council and TMO at
reputational risk because of a lack of
 transparency.

Appendices: None.

Total number of pages including 4

appendices:

Name, position and contact details Catherine HardySmith

of author: Company Secretary

Sacha Jevans
Director of Customer Services
1.1 The Board will be aware that each year the Resident Associations and
Resident Compacts can bid to RBKC for improvement works to their
estates which are not covered by the cyclical maintenance programme,
under the Council Housing Regeneration Programme. Officers from the
TMO assist the residents formulate their submissions. The start of the
consultation on the opportunity to make bids is the first round of ARBs in
February and March this year.

1.2 In prior years, individual bids were submitted separately to the Council for
their own evaluation, and final funding decisions through the Councils Key
Decision Report process. Council officers would then provide a written
report to TMO residents about the scoring and priority of schemes for
funding.

1.3 RBKC has met with TMO officers to discuss a new format for the 2011/12
bid round. The new process for submission will include the requirement
for the TMO to have an evaluation panel to receive the bids in the
prescribed format and also for TMO residents and staff to make
recommendations to RBKC from that evaluation process. The final
funding decision for schemes will remain the Council Key Decision Report
process. This new TMO part is liked to a tender evaluation panel.

1.4 As the Operations Committee already have responsibility for asset

management, and as its membership includes a balance of technical and
resident focus members, this would seem the natural place for this
evaluation to sit within the TMO structure.

1.5 The Operations Committee, being the evaluation panel in terms of RBKC
guidance, would take technical advice from officers who will assist
Residents prepare their submissions to the prescribed guidelines. Such
guildlines will include an evaluation of long term asset management in
relation to the bid, ongoing final implications and clear procurement
processes to provide a value for money statement, all of which received
weighted scores. The main scoring criteria and types of bid will be shaped
by the Councils own Housing Regeneration Programme funding criteria,
which identifies key themes they Council wishes to see developed in the
Borough.

1.6 The criteria from RBKC to enable the full procedures to be prepared has
now been released to the residents, however so that we can issue clear
policy and process advice to the residents in line with RBKCs timetable,
we need to ensure that there is a mechanism in place for evaluation of the
bids. Therefore we are recommending that the Board approve the
insertion of the following into the Operations Committee Terms of
Reference.
 To evaluate the submissions from the ARBs, RAs and Compacts
for the RBKC Housing Regeneration Programme funding, using the
Councils critrieria to evaluated bids and make recommendations to
the Council on funding programmes.

1.7 The Board should note that the evaluation meeting would be at least a half
day commitment, thus an additional Operations Committee meeting date
will need to be scheduled in line with the RBKC processes, which is likely
to mean and extra meeting in March or April this year.

2.0 Recommendation

2.1 The Board is asked to approve the insertion of an additional line of

responsibility in the Terms of Reference for the Operations Committee,
request the Operations Committee to meet on an additional date (to be
advised) and note the structures for the award of the HRP have been
tightened with guidance to be released shortly to ARBs/RAs/Compacts.