Agenda item

Recommendation

It is recommended that the Housing Overview & Scrutiny Committee:

1) Considers the performance of the service areas under its remit, as set out

in Annexe 1 to this report, and makes any recommendations to senior

management or the Executive as appropriate, and

2) considers the Annual Review of Performance Indicators, as set out in the

table below, and makes any comments or recommendations to the

Executive.

The Policy and Performance Officer will lead on this item

The section of the performance information relating to Housing Delivery and Communities starts on page 39 of the document pack and the section relating to Housing Operations starts on page 46 of the document pack.

The Service Improvement Manager presented the Quarter 4 report as the Head of Housing Delivery had given his apologies for the meeting.  She explained that the performance information was for January, February and March 2021 so that was for the end of the financial year 2020 – 2021.

Highlights included:

·         37 new homes had been built by the Council at Site A at Ockford Ridge.

·         Planning permission was gained for 6 further WBC homes in Chiddingfold

·         Next Step funding has been secured for two new modular Passivhaus homes in Farncombe, and supported with WBC Commuted Sums Council funding.

·         3 new homes had been acquired on a developer site through S106 agreement as well.

·         The Housing Strategy Enabling Team supported the delivery of 130 new homes throughout the financial year (37 by WBC, 93 by other providers).

·         They also worked on the Affordable Housing Supplementary Planning Document which was adopted 27.04.21.  It gives clear affordable housing guidelines for developers, agents and planners when assessing development opportunities.

·         The Commuted Sums Fund has also been used to provide 2 x social rented homes in Cranleigh (Southern).

·         Rough Sleeper Funding was secured for an Outreach Worker and a Tenancy Support Officer and some bed spaces were provided.  The service were preparing for an expected increase in homelessness as the eviction rules for private rented accommodation were changed.

·         The Private Sector team have seen a reduction in requests for inspections due to covid restrictions, but there have been more requests for public funeral and disabled facilities grants.

There was a question about when the Supplementary Planning Document would be in place and the Committee was told that it was adopted at the Annual Council Meeting on 27 April 2021.

It was suggested that there should be a target for maximising the number of social rent affordable social housing homes delivered.  The Housing Strategy and Enabling Manager said this would be picked up in the new Housing Strategy and it could be monitored going forward.

There was a question regarding the independent viability consultants mentioned on page 41 of the performance report, the committee wanted to know how this would be set up and whether there would be a scale of fees.  Viability fees are paid for by the developer.  The Housing Strategy and Enabling Manager stated that these issues were being worked on with the Procurement Officer.  Four consultants have been secured to set up a viability panel and where an applicant for a planning application submitted a planning viability case, work could now be rotated fairly and the Council were less likely to encounter conflict of interest issues and challenges when developers said affordable housing wasn’t viable on a particular site.

The Committee Chairman commented that the performance information had no mention of improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide emissions and he wanted to see that in future reports including in the commentary section.

There was a question regarding the low number of affordable homes granted planning consent and whether it was because of a low number of applications submitted.  Following the meeting, the Head of Planning & Economic Development confirmed that the number of major applications delivering substantial numbers of affordable homes, for which full or outline permission was granted during the year 2020-21, was lower than average.  In future, further analysis can be provided by commenting on whether schemes have triggered a requirement for affordable homes but are not providing (e.g. for viability reasons) or if an application including affordable housing provision has been refused. 

It was stated that Housing Operations had focussed on customer feedback during the quarter and they had done some “lessons learnt” work and an internal review of a repair case.

Two members of the Tenants Panel had been accepted onto the Housing Ombudsman’s Service Resident’s Panel so they could feed back nationally regarding how complaints were managed across housing organisations.

The service successfully went through the rent increase process.  They also relaunched the My Account solution where a tenant can go online to check their rent balance.

All Housing Staff had completed diversity and inclusion training and five members of staff had completed health and safety training, gaining qualifications to help ensure Waverley were managing and maintaining safe homes.

There was a discussion around whether there was meant to be a target for HO6 - % of tenancy audits completed against scheduled in a quarter.   The Chairman noted that in the introductory information, the target for HO6 was 90%.  The Service Improvement Manager confirmed there was a typo in the table and there was a target in place.

There was a question about whether the backlog of vacant homes had been cleared in line with the target of doing so by Spring 2021.  It was stated that the backlog had reduced and continued to decline.

It was stated that the Tenants Involvement Strategy was being checked with Plain English to gain a clarity mark.

The Housing Operations Service were trying to bring voids down to a manageable number.  The Head of Housing Operations said the target was under 30 and currently the figure was about 38.  He stated that the numbers went up and down and were not consistent.  The Chairman asked for it to be recorded that the committee were appreciative of the efforts of the housing team in trying to keep the void numbers low.

A service update was included in the rent statements asking all tenants to keep in touch and to let them know what they were doing well and less well.

Some of the Committee were concerned about the lack of data regarding responsive repairs and the impact that this had on tenants.  The Head of Housing Operations said the situation regarding repairs had improved since March 2020 and the backlog of repairs was down and the turnaround time regarding repairs had improved.  Complaints regarding repairs had gone down considerably and the data to back this up would be provided in the next quarterly report.

There was concern from the Committee regarding gas safety where tenants would not let inspectors into their homes because they were shielding.  It was stated that five tenants were shielding.  The Head of Housing Operations stated that the team had worked with tenants to persuade them to let gas safety inspectors in.  Vaccinations had made it easier to persuade tenants to let people in to carry out inspections.  They were down to two no access situations.

There was a question about work on communal areas and it was stated that there was a system whereby every communal area was inspected and cleaned on a monthly basis.  The Head of Service would report back on the mechanism to advise tenants of communal work requests and actions.

There was a discussion about repairs to pipework to prevent Legionnaires disease at a senior living scheme.  It was going well although there had been one incident of flooding and the tenant had been moved into temporary accommodation.

RESOLVED

That

1.    The new Housing Delivery Report will contain information on energy efficiency and carbon reduction

2.    A measure will be developed to record whether or not repairs have been carried out on communal areas.