Agenda item

5.1  Councillor Edwards welcomed Gill Davies, director of environment and housing, and colleagues Margaret O’Brien and Martin Green to the meeting, and invited her to set out the key housing issues and challenges at the moment from the perspective of her Department.

5.2  The director of environment and housing explained to the sub-committee the division of responsibilities between the environment and housing department, which has responsibility for housing management and home ownership and the regeneration department, which has responsibility for housing strategy, decent homes and community housing issues.

5.3  The director of environment and housing outlined the main housing issues as follows:

As the largest social landlord in London, Southwark has significant responsibility for housing, with some 46,000 properties. The scale of the housing responsibility in itself presents a massive challenge. Southwark also directly manages the housing stock which is quite unusual. The scale of social housing in the borough, which is used by 50% of the population, may be a factor in why councillors deal with so many housing complaints.

Over the past four years the council has been working on a significant improvement programme, with the aim of moving the housing management service out of the bottom quartile nationally in terms of performance.

  The main priorities for tenants are (as demonstrated by MORI) :

-  Repairs

-  Community Safety

-  Cleaning

5.4  The director of environment and housing went on to explain some of the major choices the council has to make in housing management, such as:-

-  the division of resources between preventative work and remedial work

-  piecemeal or aggregated approach to major works contracting

-  housing arrears and collection

-  investment in fire risk assessments

5.5  In relation to housing investment until recently there were problems with the quality of asset management data. The results have just been received from the Stock Condition Survey which will facilitate evidence based decision making.

5.6  The head of housing management outlined for the sub-committee how the department is affected by external policy changes, such as the review of Housing Revenue Allocations and inspection regimes.

5.7  In terms of next years budget it is expected that housing revenue would be lower by 3-5%

5.8  The head of housing management explained that the department is placing a high priority on improving rent and arrears collection, taking a tougher approach to maximise income to the council, and on tenants in breach of legal agreements for the payment of their arrears. Each 1% improvement in collection means an additional £750,000 in revenue for the council.

5.9  Members of the sub-committee enquired about support available to tenants on financial management issues and sustaining tenancies. It was agreed that although financial advice is available it may be easier to access if it was a central council service rather than being dispersed amongst many departments. This could be an issue that the new administration will address.

5.10  Councillors raised detailed and general queries over the accuracy and appropriateness of the performance data on housing, including collections, resident satisfaction, repair times, post-repair customer contact and complaints.

5.11  There appear to be discrepancies between the performance management information and the anecdotal information from residents which is received by councillors.

5.12  The head of housing management explained genuine improvements have been made, however, there are difficulties with the data in relation to sample size and consistency of data collection. Work is underway with the call centre operator to ensure better consistency of data collection.

5.13  There was a discussion about how the data is verified and whether a reciprocal agreement with a neighbouring borough could help, or mystery shopping to get objective data.

5.14  The head of housing management agreed to provide the quarterly performance report to the sub-committee to provide more detail on this issue.

5.15  The director of environment and housing briefly outlined the home owner management responsibilities of the council covering leaseholder charges, alternative forms of home ownership and tenant management organisations. She explained that there has recently been an audit of leaseholders which has generated around 100 actions for improvement. The council is working with the Homeowners’ Council to implement the action plan.

5.16  Councillor Edwards thanked the staff from the environment and housing department for their contributions which provided useful background for the new sub-committee.