Adra re-establishes its Housing Management Law Training
‘Amazing – This is the best and most useful training I have ever received!’
With over 30 years experience in the housing sector, Mari Pritchard has written about her experience of re-establishing this essential training here at Adra.
As a Business Development Manager at Adra, I am happy to share the exciting journey of re-establishing our Housing Management Law Training as part of the Corporate Training Programme.
This initiative was born from the vision and support of our Managers and the Director of Customer & Communities (C&C) Sarah Schofield, aiming to achieve several key objectives:
- Enhancing the knowledge and skills of our officers in housing management and the legal framework.
- Promoting the continual professional development of our housing officers.
- Raise the professional status of our housing officers in Adra.
- Ensuring the training is bespoke and relevant to Adra, aligning with our policies and processes, allowing officers to apply the learning to their roles.
The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, effective since December 2022, has brought significant changes to housing law. Following extensive work to implement the Act, it was timely to update our housing law knowledge for our day-to-day work and challenges in housing management across- allocations, tenancy services, rent and income, neighbourhood services, and repairs.
Our Learning & Development Assistant Manager, Gary Williams agreed with the above objectives, and HR provided the budget for the training. HR also arranged the invitations, venue, feedback questionnaires after each session and attendance certificates.
In 2024, we discussed with various providers and agreed to go with Blake Morgan’s proposal. Siân Jones, a partner at Blake Morgan, specialises in property litigation and residential landlord and tenant disputes, with extensive experience in the Social Housing sector and has worked previously with Adra in preparing for implementing Renting Homes.
‘It was great to be involved in Adra’ s Housing Management Training. Everyone was full engaged and the sessions were interactive focusing on how Adra can best deliver services to its residents. I hope the team found them useful.’ Siân D Jones, Partner at Blake Morgan.
Thanks to Ellena Thomas-Jones from the Business Development team for assisting in coordinating the training and sharing all the relevant documents with Blake Morgan to aid in the preparation work. and ensuring that everything went smoothly on the day!
The training was conducted over four dates in January, with each session lasting 2 -2.5 hours. I developed the program and content in consultation with Dona Griffiths from our in-house legal team. Here’s a taster of each session;
- Session 1: ASB (Anti-social Behaviour) and Prohibited Conduct / Enforcement and possession proceedings
- Session 2: Succession / Mutual Exchange / other transfers (e.g., sub-letting, joint contract holders – withdrawal,)
- Session 3: Rent Arrears – Enforcement and possession proceedings
- Session 4: Abandonment / Allocation and termination of contract issues
- Session 5: Disrepair Claims & FFHH issues (overview for frontline staff)
- Session 6: Disrepair Claims and FFHH issues (in-depth)
Staff from relevant C&C directorate services, Legal team, and Property Services attended. The Business Development team (Mari, Tamany, Steph and Ellena) attended the sessions to identify any follow-up actions and learning from the training sessions that may require reviewing and/or amending any of our current policies and processes. Thanks to Tamany Clwyd-Jones for co-ordinating this task. Tamany will work with the relevant services in Adra to ensure that this is completed.
‘This training was very useful. Sian, the trainer clearly knows her stuff by explaining a complicated subject in a way that was easily understood.’ Feedback provided at the end of the course.
We plan to run the Housing Management Law Training every 2-3 years from now on. We will assess staff feedback to help shape future sessions. This training supports and helps us achieve our Gwna Wahaniaeth Strategy. The aim of this Strategy is to change and reinforce the company’s internal culture in a positive way to help us achieve our priorities and face the challenges that will come our way in the coming years.
One of the streams under the umbrella of this work is the ’talent management’ stream. The objectives of this work stream are:
- Developing the workforce and managers
- Managing talent and succession planning
- Changing culture and the ability to manage change
- High-quality teamwork, sharing ideas and good practices
- Lifelong skills, developing skill pathways
Personally, I am incredibly proud to have been part of re-establishing the Housing Management Law Training at Adra, working collaboratively with Learning and Development, Human Resources, and Blake Morgan to ensure Adra officers can update their knowledge in housing law and gain confidence in operating in this constantly evolving and complex field.