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