Agenda item

Cabinet Member Presentation - The Future of Council Housing Stock Management - An Update Report

The presentation would concentrate on providing an update on the preferred option to bring council housing stock into council management.

Minutes:

Councillor Whitehead, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing & Safer Neighbourhoods, presented an update report on the future of East Kent Housing (EKH) and highlighted the following points as part of the update:

 

·  Thanet Council was to be ‘Landlord’ again of the council’s housing stock. There was a need to increase our housing stock and support local residents, many of whom were vulnerable;

·  Cabinet agreed to bring the management of its housing back ‘in-house’ at the extraordinary Cabinet meeting on the 17th February 2020. There was overwhelming support from Members to do this, in order to deliver on the capital programme and the corporate improvement plan;

·  In the future, Thanet would be focused on improving health and safety standards, spending more on vital building maintenance and maintaining the quality of services our residents already expected from East Kent Housing;

·  Members were aware of the risks regarding staffing, performance dips, increased costs during the transition period and reputational risks;

·  However this should be seen as an opportunity for greater control and scrutiny, enhanced resident involvement, easier decision making and more local procurement, which would enhance the housing experience for the tenants who rely on council services.

 

Further details from the presentation can be found in the slides attached as an annex to these minutes.

 

Members asked the following questions:

 

·  How many staff members would be moved over? How would we ensure their welfare, and could we be selective in our future recruiting process?

·  How would this impact the current funding for the housing service?

·  Why was the response rate from the consultation so low, and did this really mean there was overwhelming support to bring the service back in-house?

·  Could we have conducted better scrutiny on the performance of EKH?

·  When do we expect the housing stock maintenance to be taken back in-house?

·  Would there be an extensive quality control scheme?

·  How would tenants be involved in the maintenance process?

·  What were the priorities of the new East Kent Housing interim Chief Executive during this transition period?

 

Councillor Whitehead, Mr Bob Porter, Head of Housing & Planning and Mr Tim Willis, Deputy Chief Executive responded as follows:

 

·  It was difficult to work out how many staff members from East Kent Housing would be TUPE’d to Thanet, as it was at the individual employee’s choice to make amongst the four partner councils;

·  It was also important to work out a local arrangement for those staff members not protected by TUPE;

·  TDC would identify the skills set required for potential staff

·  TDC would take legal advice on the process. The Council had not started engaging the EKH staff. Staff retention was a key principle of the council on such matters;

·  There would be a potentially good transfer rate of officers willing to join TDC to a point that  there might even be vacancies that would still need to be filled;

·  The council would aim to minimise redundancies and support staff during this difficult time by recruiting a Transition Manager to oversee the process;

·  The only possible impacts on the General Fund would be secondary and they relate to the balance on share of costs due to staff transfer;

·  There would be one-off transition costs, the details of which were outlined further in the minutes of the Cabinet meeting held 17th February 2020;

·  Although there was relatively a small number of responses to the consultation; the response was overwhelmingly in agreement to move the service back in-house;

·  Consultation response figures regarding the setting up of the ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) in the original 2010 survey (for comparison) would be circulated after the meeting. However a interim check during the meeting had confirmed that a report back presented to Cabinet on 23 September 2010 indicated that 966 respondents indicated that they agreed to TDC working with partner councils to run the council’s housing stock;

·  There have been previous performance reports on EKH – but Thanet’s working relationship has not always been strong with them. When there have been problems identified, TDC had struggled to improve their performance and effect change;

 

·  The transition period would take up to one year to complete fully. It was hoped that the new arrangement would be fully operational from the 1st of April 2021;

·  It was essential to ensure that quality control measures were in place for the future. This would need to include effective internal audit, management controls of key processes such as rent collection, works ordering and invoicing. That would also include routine reconciliation procedures, post inspection of completed repair works, effective sign-off of capital works and technical auditing of health and safety compliance;

·  Residents would be more involved in the maintenance process through a Thanet tenants and leaseholders group, who will regularly meet and communicate through many different outlets;

·  Ms Vivien Knibbs, the new East Kent Housing Chief Executive had committed to work with and support TDC through a smooth transition;

 

·  Ms Knibbs undertook to supporting various work streams and ensuring service continuity throughout the transition period;

·  Ms Knibbs and TDC were aware of the need to ensure that there was no slippage in service quality or difficulty accessing the service whilst at the same time planning for the future provision of housing services to residents.

 

The Chairman thanked Councillor Whitehead for the presentation and noted the update report.

Supporting documents: