Issue - meetings

Cabinet received a report on the proposed Housing Service Standards. Service Standards were a set of commitments to Council tenants. They give information about the level of service tenants could expect from the Council. These standards also guided officers to the level of service they should be providing. Residents were involved in the development of these standards. The Repairs Service Standard described the service that was delivered by Council partnering contractors Mears and Gas Call. It gave information to residents about what to expect from Council repairs service, for example:

• the different ways in which they can report a repair;
• how long different categories of repairs will take to be carried out, and
• how an appointment will be made.

Much of this standard was dictated by the contracts that were currently in place. Residents had the opportunity to feed into the standards of behaviour expected from the operatives and call centre staff. The Lettings Standard advised residents what they could expect when they moved into one of the Council homes. It let them know what would happen when they signed a tenancy agreement, what information they would receive and what standard to expect their new home to be in when they move in. To ensure this document was relevant to new tenants, a survey was completed with new tenants from the previous six months. Their feedback informed this service standard.

Councillor Jill Bayford proposed, Councillor Pugh seconded and Cabinet agreed the following:

1.  To approve the adoption of the Repairs Standard and Lettings Standard;

2.  To give delegated authority to the Acting Corporate Director of Place in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Housing to execute minor amendments to the documents.

Sally O’Sullivan and Bob Porter, Corporate Director of Place responded to comments from Members as follows:

• The strategy was the vision the council had for its estates. It described four main objectives that were believed would enhance the estates as a place to live and these were as follows:

1.  Promote Community;

2.  Improve estate appearance;

3.  Better vehicle management;

4.  Safe place to live.

• The strategy also described:

·  How we will approach our estates to achieve our objectives;

·  How we will prioritise our estates for review and improvement works.

• Having an estate policy was a regulatory requirement. This estate policy applied the rules around how the strategy objectives would be delivered. It also described residents and Council responsibilities in achieving those objectives;
• The estate standard lets council tenants know what work council did to maintain and take care of the communal areas in and around its blocks of flats;
• This included communal cleaning, how the communal repairs, grounds maintenance and car parks were dealt with;
• The policy lets residents know what they were responsible for, which included the storage of belongings in communal areas and the disposal of refuse and how the council monitored the standard in partnership with residents;
• Residents were highly involved in the development of these documents. Information gathered from the estate inspections was used as well as information collected from two resident focus groups.

Members made comments as follows:

• Members supported the policies which were comprehensive and had been well written;
• The removal of carpets would counteract the insulation efforts being made to these properties by the council. If there was already a decent carpet in the property, why would such a carpet not be left in that home, after it had been deep cleaned?

Sally O’Sullivan and Bob Porter, Corporate Director of Place responded to comments from Members as follows:

• Carpets were in most cases not in a good condition to be left in the properties that were being repaired;
• These old carpets often carried parasites and it was good practice to remove and replace them;
• Assistance would be provided to those households that would struggle to buy new carpets.

Members noted the report.