AN Independent councillor has accused Thurrock Council of bypassing proper scrutiny after a critical review of its social housing service went straight to Cabinet without being examined by a committee.

Cllr Neil Speight, who represents Stanford-le-Hope West, called in the report for discussion at Tuesday's (6 January) Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee, arguing the process was "unconstitutional."

The peer review, carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA), highlighted serious failings in the council's housing service, which manages more than 9,800 homes.  A report on the review, went to cabinet last month and met with little challenge or questions.

The full peer review, with many damning indictments of the council including not giving tenants advice on safety, can be read here.

Cllr Speight told the meeting: "It was a very damning critique of the council's housing service with many significant failures.

"I was shocked to realise that at that Cabinet meeting there had been no scrutiny on that document at all. It hadn't been to this committee. It really was being nodded through without any great debate."

He said the review exposed "failure after failure," including poor standards, lack of challenge, incomplete external audits, and tenants reporting no input into financial oversight.

Cllr Roy Jones

Committee chairman Cllr Roy Jones said legal advice meant only a summary of the report could be discussed at the meeting, along with what actions the committee would take on the call-in. And he said his committee would eventually get to see a copy of the report after it was embedded in the work prgramme.

Claire Demmel, Thurrock Council's interim director of place, acknowledged the findings.

She said: "We're not disputing the peer review. We commissioned it because we wanted a deep dive into the service.

Claire Demmel

"This is part of a wider piece of work to baseline all our findings, complaints and good practice. We now believe we're in a position to get to work on the improvements we know we need to make. We're not trying to hide anything."

The seven-member committee which comprised four Labour councillors and a representative from the independents, Conservative and Reform, ultimately rejected Cllr Speight's call to send the report back to Cabinet and voted to wait for an action plan, due at the end of January.

Only Labour's Cllr Srikanth Panjala supported the call in so the council can press ahead with unchallenged plans including new senior officer appointments.

The LGA review praised dedicated staff and a healthy Housing Revenue Account but warned of low morale, lack of permanent leadership, and weak governance since a housing scrutiny committee was dissolved.

It urged urgent cultural change and stronger oversight to meet regulatory standards and deliver a tenant-first approach.