Agenda item

Ms Deborah Upton, Chief Executive Officer of East Kent Housing introduced the report for discussion. Ms Upton made the following comments:

• The majority of indicators reflected improvement for the period under review;
• With regards to universal credit and rent arrears: EKH had started working with the Job Centre once every five weeks in Margate and Ramsgate, as a pilot project to assist individuals who were in the Job Centre system. This had resulted in thirteen residents being assisted to sent up repayment plans for their rent arrears;
• For the last six months EKH has worked with three hundred residents to help them with financial support including helping Thanet residents claim £65k of back paid benefits.;
• With regards to the capital programme: Historically the capital programme had been under performing.
• A new consultant was currently working on Royal Crescent to develop a programme that would see a full spend of the capital programme. Royal Crescent was the main contributor to the underspend;
• A new gas contract had started and the work was progressing on well as the contractor was on target. They were being monitored closely.

Councillor Stuart Piper spoke under Council Procedure 20.1.

Members thereafter made comments and asked questions as detailed below:

• Ms Upton had a mammoth task under difficult circumstances;
• There was a need to understand the problems that led to the council making the decision to bring back in house the management of its housing stock, particularly the health and safety concerns;
• There was a meeting between the four partner councils and the regulator in recent weeks. What was the outcome of that meeting?
• Were the properties that were still not compliant to the health and safety regulations being used?
• How were insurance issues relating to these properties being managed?
• Considering that residents were living in those properties, did this situation not open council to litigation?
• Was there a timetable for reaching full compliance?

Responding to Member questions and comments, Ms Upton and Mr Porter said the following:

• The regulator had been involved since the council made a self referral once the health and safety issues were first discovered;
• A significant amount of work had been carried out by both the council and EKH to correct the situation;
• the regulator was looking for assurances and detailed proposals for attaining full assurance;
• A specialist company was contracted to review the current situation and propose the way forward;
• The regulator had asked the partner council to get into a voluntary undertaking of how they were going to arrive at full compliance;
• TDC had insurance cover for its buildings;
• Mitigation arrangements were in place to minimize the risk relating to non compliance. These measures included increased site visits;
• For the affected buildings, there were additional preventative measures such as inspections, overnight security, extra testing and extra bin collections;
• TDC was exposed to risk and hence the need to achieve full compliance;
• There was a project plan in place with a timetable for completing the compliance tasks;
• Officers could bring this project plan to the next Panel meeting.

Councillor Tomlinson proposed, Councillor Parsons seconded and members agreed to note the report.

Councillor Campbell proposed, Councillor Lynda Piper seconded and Members proposed that a Members Briefing be held to give updates on the corrective action taken to date regarding the health and safety compliance issues at EKH.