Agenda item - ENFIELD REPAIRS DIRECT

Agenda item

ENFIELD REPAIRS DIRECT

To receive the draft report of the Director of Housing & Regeneration.

Minutes:

Councillor Gina Needs (Cabinet Member Social Housing), introduced the report which was presented by Joanne Drew (Director of Housing & Regeneration) and Garry Knights (Head of Housing Property Services).

 

It was noted that the in-sourcing of the Housing repairs service was approved by Cabinet in June 2019.

 

The report includes details of the Repairs Service model and the Housing Repairs Maintenance and Planned works Policy. It set out the progress made with the MOT service which is gradually building up capacity for in-sourcing the repairs service. The report would be considered at Cabinet on 12 February 2020

 

The following questions/ issues were raised:

  • Reference was made in the report to the implementation of the Housing Resolution Centre by the end of February 2020. It was confirmed that this would be located with the repairs centre based at Edmonton, rather than the contact centre. It should enable jobs/repairs to be diagnosed easier. A visit will be arranged for Councillor Smith and Councillor Aramaz to view the centre.
  • There had been problems in the past in dealing with Void properties and it was asked how this would improve under the new model. Joanne Drew said we would continue to outsource this work until we were confident that this was performing well.
  • It was suggested that a comparison chart would be useful to show a timeline of how we would meet demand.  It was noted that the model is based around delivering 40,000 repairs per year, this represents 3.8 repairs per property per year. However, this should reduce over time with improvements from the MOT service and investment programmes.
  • There would be a rechargeable service where we could recover costs from people where damage has occurred – in answer to a question about overheads charged, it was pointed out that we would not be making a profit, but it would be necessary for us to cover our overheads.
  • We would be looking to continue to bring various services in-house in the future and would be looking at the skill sets needed.
  • 25% of the stock condition survey has been completed and the service would continue to survey all properties over the next few years.  It was asked that the Director of Housing & Regeneration report back to OSC giving a timeline for the survey.
  • An Asset Management Strategy for Council Housing would be submitted by June 2020.
  • The Repairs Service Model (p41 of the agenda) sets out how the repairs service would be delivered.
  • The 40k repairs quoted is based on actual jobs for the year – 3.8 per property. However, by tackling long term infrastructure problems this should gradually drive down numbers of repairs needed each year.
  • IT systems change. We shall continue to have a stand- alone system repairs but there will be appropriate interfaces.
  • Cabinet had approved £1.2m for the implementation of the in-sourced service.  It was asked what the savings were on current costs and what would be the estimated expenditure in four years’ time? It was answered that the current costs are £4.8m which would have risen to approx. £5.3m in four years’ time however by bringing the service in-house this would allow us to build in efficiencies to reduce costs.  

 

AGREED

  1. A visit will be arranged for Councillor Smith and Councillor Aramaz to view the Housing Resolution centre (Action: Joanne Drew)

 

  1. That the Director of Housing & Regeneration report back to OSC, giving timelines for the completion of the stock condition survey.

                                                             (Action: Joanne Drew)

 

Officers were thanked for their reports.

 

Members of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee remained, all other officers and members had left at this point.

Supporting documents: