Agenda item

To receive a report from Dave Hodgson, Director of Asset Management, Housing and Modernisation on heating and Hot Water outages. (Report to follow)

In addition, to hear from Rouel Road residents and service providers (TBC).

The commission then heard from ward councillors, Councillor Cassandra Brown and Councillor Leo Pollak on heating and hot water outages at Rouel Road

• Severe heating and hot water outages especially during winter at Rouel Road estate, residents have been let down by the council
• Community meetings held with Council officers and previous Cabinet Member for Council Homes, actions from that meeting not implemented and has led to current issues
• Figures provided in the report for Rouel Road not an accurate reflection of residents facing issues and the recorded casework. Surveys and door to door feedback from 15 residents on heating and hot water outages in last week alone.
• Issues with communications in general and also with customers contacting the call centre, repeated calls and no previous records of calls; contractors not in attendance at this scrutiny meeting and blame culture between contractors and the council; maintenance of plant rooms and pipework’s at this estate.
• Performance and repairs data collection for contract management; external stakeholders such as Thame Water especially with regards to hardness of the water.

The commission then asked questions on the following points

• Action plans implemented and resident experiences; major improvement works planned for heating and hot water at Rouel road.

Councillor Pollak explained to the commission that periodic actions taken to repair, clean and fix plant room and pipe work don’t prevent the outages over the winter, a more holistic assessment of Rouel Road estate heating and hot water needs to be undertaken. Furthermore, resident complaints are seemingly treated as overemphasized, which is not the case and he is unaware of any major improvement works planned for Rouel road; officers from asset management are not present at this meeting to answer these questions pertaining to Rouel road.

The commission also noted that in previous years there have been scrutiny recommendations made to Cabinet on heating and hot water outages, and a review of the progress on those recommendations could be considered.

The commission then heard from residents of Rouel road estate Robert Randles, Wendy, Karen Gregory and Jerry Flynn on the following themes

• Heating and hot water outages at Rouel increased since the upgrade and in 2020 (April to October) during Covid, there were issues with heating; repairs carried out caused issues of water leakage, out of hours service did not treat it as an emergency; residents often advise to use fan heaters during heating outages which are a safety hazard for children with special needs.
• During summer, legally temperature settings for heating to turn off is 17C and 15C during the night which is not warm enough; Issues with accountability of OCO and BSW service providers as their responsible for Plant room and pipework issues respectively.
• Heating distributed at Rouel road is not meeting resident expectations as they operate at legal minimal levels; weekend outages are common at Rouel road and after hours escalations are never fixed overnight and/or over the weekend.
• Repairs contact centre waiting times of 20- 40 minutes are not acceptable; service charges in excess of £2k of which 60% are heating and hot water charges, residents charged call out charges for every visit however residents are still without heating and hot water; residents need compensation for outages
• Even after repeated calls elderly residents have suffered due to heating outages for days and have had to use blankets to keep themselves warm in extreme temperatures -1C; residents usage of fan heaters have increased energy bills on an average of £2/day to 10£/day for many days and compensation given was £3.80.
• Proper maintenance and service plans essential, repairs service need revamping and compensation for hardship suffered by residents; heating issues at Rouel Road in report by officers suggest October 2020 to March 2021, however residents’ have reported issues much earlier.
• Residents’ record of outages from 2016 submitted to council as a complaint; officer report suggests that outages are not widespread, however most properties have experienced outages at one time or another; Compensation in officer reports does not indicate the amount paid to residents.
• Since March 2021 multiple properties have experienced heating outages including hot water, multiple calls have been made over days for the same outages, repair jobs are routinely closed daily without confirming with residents that issue has been resolved, on one occasion a repair issue had to be reported every day for 9 days before the repair was finally completed. Resident informed by OCO contractors that descaling required for their property which has led to long outages.
• Online reviews and ratings of BSW contractor are quite bad and low respectively; emergency contact numbers for residents to contact call centre and estates not functional; 50% turnover of staff at repairs call centre; incorrect information given to contractors regarding the heating and hot water setup at different properties.

The commission noted that heating and hot water outages is a borough wide issue affecting multiple estates.

The commission then heard from Interim Strategic Director for Housing, David Quirke-Thornton that due to some miscommunication amongst officers, the Asset Management team officers are not present at this commission meeting to present the submitted report and address the commission with regards to questions on Rouel Road estate. However, David also informed the commission that he himself had been briefed on the report and would be happy to answer questions. In addition, David also agreed that there might be a need for Asset Management team officers to attend a future commission meeting.

The commission then heard from David on the following topics

·  Acknowledgement of disappointing and frustrating resident experiences since 2016 and the impact that the heating and hot water outages has had on residents and families; Significant investment has been made in upgrades to the heating network, however resident experiences raises questions of sustainability of the district heating service.

·  Current issues with district heating service with regards to pipework, plant rooms and maintenance indicate short term fixes are leading to recurring issues and further assessment on the long term sustainability of district heating service is needed which has already seen major investments by the council.

·  Challenges around bringing all stakeholders together like contractors, Thames Water and the Council; revisiting and auditing previous recommendations to Cabinet and making new recommendations could result in the same results for residents; existential question on running the district heating in the modern world and making it reliable.

The commission then agreed that Rouel Road Estate will be on the agenda for the next commission meeting ensuring officer attendance to answer the questions put forth by residents at this commission meeting.

The commission then heard from the newly appointed Cabinet Member for Council Homes, Councillor Sarah King that the questions and feedback from residents on heating and hot water outages at Rouel road will be discussed with ward councillors, officers and Councillor King herself, including existing and future action plans, in the interest of bringing back tangible updates to the commission.

The commission then asked further questions on the following themes (heating & hot water outages)

• Mechanisms for contractor monitoring and accountability; addressing systemic failures on the inception of the contract work carried out and assessment of viability of upgrades across the borough.
• Incongruence between resident feedback and report submitted by officers; repeat callers, reporting issues, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and performance data over a longer period across the borough; repeated compensations for the same resident calls; Compensation processes for private tenants (refund of service charges going to landlords)
• Extension of current contracts according to the forward plan and carrying over current terms and conditions.
• Existential question of the sustainability of district heating and its impact on the Council’s aim to be carbon-neutral; attendance of contractors at the next Cabinet meeting in March 2024 where decision on extension of contracts would be taken.

David informed the commission that current contracts don’t have strict and robust enough mechanisms for monitoring and accountability and also to recover some of the monies as compensation for residents, there is on-going work in developing frameworks and procuring new contracts with stricter mechanisms for monitoring, accountability and compensations.

David explained to the commission that there have been areas where upgrades and routine maintenance have worked successfully and areas where it hasn’t, causing long outages. Furthermore, there are have been survey, work plans, strategy and significant funding allocated to these projects. However, there needs to be proper consideration of options to provide adequate heating and hot water to residents.

David agreed that officers would provide a further report taking into account questions raised by this commission and request for data.

The commission heard from David that there are some benefits from extending current contracts with regards to costs and standards, however it is acknowledged that stricter control mechanisms and levers need to be in place and will be considered in discussions with other officers.

David informed the commission that across the work programme, eco-friendly boilers have been successfully installed in many areas. In district heating the challenges lie in providing adequate heat to residents with varying needs of heating temperatures such as elderly residents, families and individuals with special needs in a reliable, cost effective and eco-friendly way. There are questions whether the district heating model can be made to work for individual needs. Currently compensations, complaints and statutory processes cause a lot of hassle for residents and take up officer time, it could be more pragmatic to spend those resources on solutions that work for residents. On attendance of contractors at the next Cabinet meeting in March, this will be discussed with Cabinet Member for Council Homes.

The commission agreed to follow up on possible recommendations arising from the last commission meeting on 6 February 2024.