Issue - meetings

Members were advised that the four East Kent Councils of Canterbury, Dover, Folkestone & Hythe and Thanet each pay an annual management fee to East Kent Housing for the provision of service to Council tenants. Each of the four councils will be considering the proposed improvement plan and all will need to approve it for it to be effective.

Cabinet noted that the management fee had not seen any inflation increases since 2011 and the services provided by East Kent Housing (EKH) were relatively low cost. EKH had performed well in the areas of rent collection, managing empty homes and resident satisfaction with repairs. However other functions needed urgent improvement, which in turn had created the need for the adoption of the improvement plan.

The plan focused on improvements needed to contract management, procurement, delivery of approved capital programme and the implementation of new IT. There was also a need to increase resources for rent collections, following the roll out of Universal Credit.

The plan sets clear outcomes and performance measures that will be closely monitored over the coming 18 months. The costs of the plan have been incorporated into the draft Housing Revenue Account budgets for 2019/20 that had been recommended to Cabinet for approval by Council.

Councillor Campbell spoke under Council Procedure Rule 20.1.

Councillor Game proposed, Councillor Savage seconded and Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To endorse the draft Improvement Plan at Annex 1 (to the Cabinet report);

2.  To note that the costs set out in this report are included within draft budget proposals for 2019/20.