Agenda item

Report of Director of Regeneration and Planning.

Millie McDevitt, Performance and Management Lead, introduced the report which provided detail of the Council’s performance in Quarter 1 2019/20 (1 April – 30 June 2019). During discussion the following points were highlighted:

Target completion dates for Council projects – the Committee sought clarification on a number of completion dates for projects included in the Regeneration and Business, and the Finance and Corporate Projects and Programmes sections of the report. Officers agreed to discuss the issue with the relevant project managers and where available to provide detail on interim milestones/dates and on the status of those projects.

Calls to the Contact Centre – Officers advised Members that during quarter 1 the volume of calls to the Contact Centre had increased significantly, generated predominantly through the issuing of council tax, business rate bills and election related enquiries. There had also been two elections in May (European and local elections). The performance indicators for this area were under review and would in the future look at the quality of the call response as well as the speed of the response. Members suggested that the volume of calls answered during peak times be analysed.

Homes First presentation – Simon Watts, Interim Lead, Homes First Property Services, updated the Committee on the work being undertaken towards managing void properties and re-let times ‘Key to Key’. During discussion the following points were highlighted:

• The charge-back process allowed the Council to recover costs for voids and all other day-to-day repairs where tenants caused damage. The Homes First team was responsible for managing void repairs and Mears managed day-to-day repairs. Collection rates were currently low and work was being done towards improving the monitoring of the process. A sundry debtor’s account would be set-up and tighter control would be introduced to ensure tenants took more responsibility for any damage. The main incentive for tenants who left properties in a poor condition was that, at some point, they may need to join the property list again. There would also be opportunities for money orders (through the County Court) to be included in cases of repossession.

• The void timetable had been officer led using good practice. The opportunity for Member input into the timetable would be suggested to the Council’s Corporate Management Team.

• Each void property was pre and post inspected and a number of properties were turned around in five days. However, there were properties requiring significant refurbishment, modernisation and investment, increasing the average cost across all void properties. There was not currently sufficient data across the Council’s stock to determine the condition of the properties, including the presence of asbestos, requiring the Council to undertake full refurbishment and demolition (R&D) surveys. As an organisation, Mears sub-contracted any work involving asbestos, which extended the period of re-let time and added to the overall costs. Existing contracts would be reviewed and where possible value-for-money would be improved.

• Homes First was using a new IT system and efforts would be made to look at the void property spend in previous years, particularly on the individual elements such as electrics/rewiring, boiler repairs/replacements. Benchmarking with other organisations (including those that used Mears) would be undertaken, following the design of the ‘schedule of rates’. This would allow consideration of different delivery models.

• Lewes District Council had a capital budget of £4.8 million for housing repairs (major, planned and cyclical). The response rate of 13000 over 3,000 properties (an average of approximately 4 per property) did not vary to any great extent from the average. Eighty percent of the data used to monitor repairs was from a two year old, twenty percent survey. Newer surveys would be undertaken.

• The Committee requested that the Homes First Team report back in a year’s time with an update on the voids/re-letting position.

• The change of categories for ‘priority need’ within the 2007 Homeless Reduction Act had contributed to an increase in the numbers of households in emergency accommodation. There was a work-stream now ongoing dedicated to reducing the current figure.

Planning performance – the performance indicators for planning applications were subject to fluctuation from quarter to quarter, however, the current targets for major and minor planning applications had been exceeded. New ways of working, including new IT systems, would need to be embedded before staff resources were looked at.

RESOLVED

a) To note the progress and performance for Quarter 1 as well as the overall

performance for 2019/20; and

b) Recommend to the Cabinet that the target dates and interim milestones for Council projects be reviewed.