Agenda item

Tenant and Leaseholder Services KPI Q4

Minutes:

Sally O’Sullivan, Tenant and Leaseholder Services Manager introduced the report and made the following comments:

 

  • Significant improvements had been made and the Regulatory Notice had been removed;
  • The Improvement Plan that was set to March 2022 had been accomplished;
  • The team continued to work with MEARS in order to meet the performance targets;
  • Arrears had fallen. However more work still needed to be done to reduce the level of debt;
  • The capital work programme performance had improved significantly.

 

Members made comments as follows:

 

  • Why have ‘Voids’ increased?
  • Why have customer satisfaction levels gone down?
  • Members were impressed by the effort being made by the Housing team;
  • The tenants newsletter was now more accessible to residents;
  • With the ongoing energy crisis, did officers think that the non payments of rents would increase in the future?
  • Where residents referred to training services to enable them to manage their finances better?
  • Southern Water demonstrated how to serve on water costs. Would officers be sharing such information with residents?
  • Was there a risk to the council if and when the sponsorship arrangements for Ukrainian refugees broke down?
  • There were some families who would like to get involved in hosting the refugee families. How could they go about it?
  • Were there any long standing complaints from residents that had not been responded to?

 

Sally O’Sullivan, Bob Porter and Chris Blundell, Acting Deputy CEx & S151 Officer responded as follows:

 

  • Although the ‘Voids’ were still high, they had decreased from the previous quarter’s performance report;
  • There were major ‘Voids’ from East Kent Housing which had been outstanding for a long time;
  • There had been an increased response rate to the survey on customer satisfaction due in part to the changes to the questionnaire which had been simplified to make the questions easier to understand. This had contributed to more honest responses;
  • The Housing team support residents to maximise their income and take up benefits they are entitled to and sign post residents to support services;
  • The corporate risk report that was going to the Governance and Audit team also focused on identifying areas of support for residents;
  • The Home Energy Officer was working on approaches for energy efficiency for homes;
  • Officers were working on a net zero strategy for the council’s housing stock in order to improve the energy efficiency for residents;
  • This strategy would be in line with the government strategy. A report would be going to the Housing Cabinet Advisory Group, Climate Change Cabinet Advisory Group, OSP and Cabinet in the coming months;
  • The break down in sponsorship arrangements for Ukrainian refugee families has been flagged as a risk with the Homelessness service;
  • The Private Sector Housing team was currently supporting the Homes for Ukraine Programme. The council visits the homes of any sponsors to check for suitability before any rematching the refugee families with new sponsor family, in the event that the original sponsorship breaks down;
  • There were not many long standing complaints in the period. Complaints were being responded to in time. For those that took their complaints further to the Ombudsman, the council had provided responses to the Ombudsman Office;

 

Members noted the report.

Supporting documents: