Margaret O’Brien, Head of Housing Management.
Minutes:
Margaret O’Brien, Head of Housing Management, gave a presentation on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) budget and informed residents that the council was seeking their input in setting priorities in terms of how to achieve savings. Margaret advised that social rents would increase by 7.08% in 2011-12 and explained how the housing budget was split. Margaret asked residents to take a booklet and use the stickers provided to indicate where they felt the housing service’s priorities should lie.
Margaret took questions from the floor relating to: how much money could be saved by better monitoring of/more investment in the repairs service, who has responsibility for housing repairs, would there be a report back in 6 months on the outcome of the housing repairs scrutiny, the impact of the potential 80% market value social rents, the quality of outdoor repairs and a specific question on repairs to kitchen cupboards in terms of what the council was responsible for.
In response Margaret explained the service was seeking to make savings through contract efficiency and that £1.2 million was currently being held back from one contractor due to performance issues. Margaret explained that as Head of Housing Management she was responsible for the repairs service and praised the scrutiny review into the service as it highlighted problems officers were not previously aware of. A housing review group was being established which aimed to give residents more control of elements of the housing service such as the management of contracts. The 80% market value social rents would not affect the housing service budget as this would apply to new tenants, the impact for the council would be on future development/regeneration programmes. It was difficult to explain which repairs the council was responsible for so Margaret took the details of the resident at the end of the item so she could look into her particular case.
Cllr Edwards hoped that the lessons learned from the scrutiny review into internal repairs could be applied to outdoor repairs as he suspected many of the same problems would exist in that area. He explained that overview and scrutiny would revisit the topic in 6 months time to review how the recommendations had been implemented; he hoped that the drive for further efficiencies could be the subject of further scrutiny in the future.
Cllr Diamond called on councillors to lobby their local member of parliament to protect vulnerable residents in the area.
The chair invited Cllr Wingfield, cabinet member for housing management, to address the meeting. Cllr Wingfield took questions from the floor relating to the possibility of linking rents to income and holding senior officers in the council to account. Cllr Wingfield explained that it would not be lawful to link rents to income and that, in any case, this might impact on social mobility and aspirations of residents. He also stated that the cabinet had implemented a new structure for the housing department and a new director with specific responsibility for the service had recently been appointed.