Devonshires Housing Conferences 2023: Birmingham Programme Announced


In this fast-moving operating environment, we are keen to ensure that our housing clients are able to keep updated on key regulatory, legal and commercial changes.

Earlier this year, we announced we would be hosting tailored conferences in Birmingham, Leeds, and London, to enable our clients to keep abreast of updates, but also get the opportunity to come together to discuss their issues and best practice. Gemma Bell, Partner, provides an introduction to our first housing conference for 2023, being delivered in Birmingham.

As Head of our Birmingham office, I’m delighted to tell you about the first of our tailored housing conferences, being held at the Library of Birmingham on 27th April 2023.

Specifically designed and free of charge for our housing clients, we hope you will be able to join us for some or all of the day. We have structured the event with specific focuses in the morning and afternoon, to allow you to make the best use of your time, but if you’re unable to join us in the day we hope you will still be able to attend our late afternoon informal networking drinks.

I have summarised the conference programme below and also provided a link to the full programme.

Morning Plenary – Are you Compliant?

With the legal and regulatory agenda in a state of flux, it can sometimes feel overwhelming keeping ahead of key changes.

In the morning’s sessions, we will be focusing on compliance requirements and their interplay with key business and operational risks. In particular, we will be concentrating on:

  • IT contracts and cyber security – with a spate of recent high-profile cyber attacks in the sector (and more widely), IT-related risks rank highly in many providers’ risk registers. In this session, experts from our Information Management, Commercial and Litigation teams will be considering the key risks to your business and how these can be managed, as well as how to respond in the event of an attack to meet your legal and regulatory requirements;
  • Changing consumer regulation requirements – including an update on where we are with the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and the implementation of changes to the Consumer Standards and key issues in relation to disrepair and damp and mould;
  • Health and safety – this will include consideration of the interplay between new Tenant Satisfaction Measures reporting requirements and health and safety obligations, as well as an update on the implementation of recent changes under the Building Safety Act.

Wrapping up the morning will be a Q&A panel discussion, touching on the key areas coming out of the morning’s sessions and best practice in relation to compliance assurance.

Afternoon Plenary – Planning for the future

Although the 7% rent caps were widely welcomed by housing providers, the impact of the caps coupled with inflationary pressures and increased investment requirements have required many providers to look again at their business plans and consider how best they can meet their strategic objectives.

Our afternoon sessions will be forward looking and will consider how different delivery and funding models may be helpful when facing current financial and operational pressures. We will be looking at:

  • Collaboration and partnership working models, including information partnerships, joint ventures and shared service models; and
  • Future funding models.

Again, to wrap up the afternoon session, we will host a Q&A panel discussion touching on the key areas discussed.

Networking

We would be delighted if you could join us for networking drinks in the afternoon, to round off the day and catch up with your peers and the Devonshires team. If you are unable to make it for the conference itself, you are still welcome to join us!

Birmingham Programme

You can view the full programme for our Birmingham conference here, where you can also register your attendance.

Programmes for our Leeds and London Conferences will be published in due course.

If you have any questions on our Birmingham Conference, or indeed our London and Leeds Conferences, please don’t hesitate to contact me or our Business Development team.

Gemma Bell, Partner


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