Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received by Councillors Julie Ashley-Wren, John Duncan, and Carolina Veres.

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the Community Select Committee held on Tuesday 19 September 2023.

It was RESOLVED: That the Minutes of the Meeting of the Committee held on 19 September 2023 be approved as a true record of the proceedings and be signed by the Chair.

As a piece of pre-scrutiny policy development, Members are invited to receive and comment on a presentation on the emerging updated Housing Revenue Account Business Plan.

The Strategic Director explained that the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) was a separate account that was primarily focused on the Stevenage Borough Council (SBC) housing stock. The HRA Business Plan set out the strategic plan on how to maintain and manage the housing stock. The Government had ended the national council housing subsidy system and introduced a new self-financing regime under the Localism Act 2012. This gave local authorities more autonomy with their housing stocks. However there was a £200m debt settlement payment made to the treasury which meant SBC had to borrow this amount. Therefore SBC needed a clear business plan, which included longer term planning of managing the debt over a 30-year period.

The first HRA Business Plan was approved in 2012 and got reviewed when there was a significant change in circumstance. There was a fundamental review in 2019. Since the policy landscape for housing has significantly changed recently, it was appropriate to review it again. For example, there was new legislation after the Grenfell tragedy, as well as damp and mould, additional requirements through the Social Housing Regulation Act, Fire Safety Act, and the Building Safety Act. Additionally, the world was changing and the cost-of-living crisis and covid had a knock-on effect on the plan. All these factors placed a lot of demand onto SBC as a housing provider.

Due to covid the investment programmes had to be extended and a lot of the original priorities would continue. Targets from the 2019/20 plan had been met, including:

·       287 new homes since 2019 – 486 homes had been delivered.

·       Implemented the Decent Homes programme.

·       Implemented the Major Refurbishment contract.

·       Improved compliance position.

·       Improved energy performance.

·       Improved how stock was managed and allocated.

There had also been a focus on improvements from tenant suggestions, such as repairs which the Community Select Committee had been focusing on this year, and were also investing in energy performance measures.

The Finance Business Partner informed Members that the government set the national rent policy and had put 4 years of rent decreases into place between 2016 and 2020. This took £225m from the 30-year plan and affected the housing association sector as well as the Council. There was also a high level of rent arrears which had a knock-on effect as SBC had to provide for more bad debt. There was constant work in place to keep arrears as low as possible. The introduction of universal credit being paid in arrears created problems as people were getting into rent arrears while waiting for their universal credit to be paid.

SBC were seeking other sources of funding, such as £17.8m grant funding for new build houses and £5.4m for decarbonisation projects. The HRA only survived on the rental income and even funded the debt repayments.

There were many unknown risks which had to be taken into account when making the plan which included:

·       The current rent setting policy ran out in 2024. Rent is currently set at inflation + 1%, but this could  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Members are invited to comment on the Repairs review mapping document which collates the issues that the review is addressing and on the evidence compiled and on any officer responses provided.

The Chair introduced the document and reminded Members that the scope had been agreed in the July Community Select Committee meeting and since then they had interviewed the Portfolio Holder and Officers, as well as Members completing a site visit. She noted that there wasn’t a current policy or standards and suggested this should be picked up as part of policy development. She added that she was impressed at how many repairs had taken place. The Assistant Director (Building Safety and Housing Property Services) advised that she could share the findings from the external Ridge review of the repairs service at the next Community Select Committee meeting.

The Chair made some comments on the review which included:

·       There were instances where jobs had been referred incorrectly to the wrong teams.

·       The site visit identified jobs that were booked in, but operatives were not present due to things such as being on holiday or off sick.

·       The investment and the repairs teams needed to work in close collaboration and suggested a better triage system be put in place to streamline the process. She noted that it was positive that customers could upload images of repairs being reported and that better assessment should take place at this stage of the process. She noticed some barriers between the teams and suggested relationships should be improved.

·       There needed to be more training for CSC Officers and checklists should be developed of what to ask the tenant to ensure they understood the original request.

·       The communication they observed with tenants was excellent.

·       There were some appointments arranged when tenants weren’t there. The correct phone number needed to be provided with the original repair request. She suggested that if there were multiple failures to attend appointments then there should be a charge.

·       She recommended that the repairs service should be a focus within community engagement, so people understood the implications of not being available when the operatives call/miss appointments and the impact this had on the service.

·       More concrete policies should be required.

Members thanked the team for their response to the review and the improved changes taking place already.

The Assistant Director (Building Safety and Housing Property Services) advised that they had already picked up on some of the key issues such as the need for clear policies and processes as well as better communications between teams. She highlighted the positive things happening within the repair services but acknowledged that there were areas of improvement needed and they were focusing on these.

The Chair asked whether there were different processes for repairs compared to replacements. The Assistant Director (Building Safety and Housing Property Services) advised that the repairs team determined what was a repair or a replacement in consultation with the investment team, but the customer shouldn’t have a difference experience.

To consider any Part I business accepted by the Chair as urgent

There was none.

To consider the following motions:

1. That under Section 100(A) of the Local Government Act 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the ground that they involve the likely disclosure of exempt information as described in paragraphs 1 – 7 of Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Act as amended by Local Government (Access to Information) (Variation) Order 2006.

2. That Members consider the reasons for the following reports being in Part II and determine whether or not maintaining the exemption from disclosure of the information contained therein outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

Not required.

To consider any Part II business accepted by the Chair as urgent

There was none.