Agenda and minutes

Councillors Spall, Gallagher, Hamitouche, Dean Donaghey ( Co-opted Member)

There were no declarations of substitute members

If you have a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest* in an item of business:

§  if it is not yet on the council’s register, you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent;

§  you may choose to declare a Disclosable Pecuniary Interest that is already in the register in the interests of openness and transparency. 

In both the above cases, you must leave the room without participating in discussion of the item.

If you have a personal interest in an item of business and you intend to speak or vote on the item you must declare both the existence and details of it at the start of the meeting or when it becomes apparent but you may participate in the discussion and vote on the item.

*(a)   Employment, etc - Any employment, office, trade, profession or vocation carried on for profit or gain.

(b) Sponsorship - Any payment or other financial benefit in respect of your expenses in carrying out duties as a member, or of your election; including from a trade union.

(c) Contracts - Any current contract for goods, services or works, between you or your partner (or a body in which one of you has a beneficial interest) and the council.

(d) Land - Any beneficial interest in land which is within the council’s area.

(e) Licences- Any licence to occupy land in the council’s area for a month or longer.

(f) Corporate tenancies - Any tenancy between the council and a body in which you or your partner have a beneficial interest.

 (g) Securities - Any beneficial interest in securities of a body which has a place of business or land in the council’s area, if the total nominal value of the securities exceeds £25,000 or one hundredth of the total issued share capital of that body or of any one class of its issued share capital. 

This applies to all members present at the meeting.

There were no declarations of interest

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 23 July 2020 be confirmed as an accurate record of proceedings and the Chair be authorised to sign them.

The Chair stated that the order of business would be as per the agenda

For members of the public to ask questions relating to any subject on the meeting agenda under Procedure Rule 70.5. Alternatively, the Chair may opt to accept questions from the public during the discussion on each agenda item.

The Chair outlined the procedure for Public questions

Maxine Holdsworth and Christine Short, Housing Directorate were present for the meeting

The Chair outlined the draft recommendations to the Committee, following which the following main points were made –

·         In response to a question as to why the pilot was not scheduled until 2023, it was stated that with the Partners properties coming back ‘in house’ in 2022,  it was felt that this was the earliest opportunity to do this, taking into account officers workload, to introduce a pilot

·         In response to a question as to the 30 year business plan, it was stated that this would be provided, together with the Asset Management  Plan, at the next meeting of the Committee for consideration

·         Reference was made to recommendation 10, and it was noted that officers tried to minimise the use of scaffolding, and that any additional time that  scaffolding was erected over the specified contract period, had to be paid by the contractor

·         In relation to recommendation 11, it was noted that a new Corporate Procurement Strategy is being presented for consideration in the near future

·         Members were of the view that there should be an interim report submitted to the Committee in 6 months as to progress on the recommendations

RESOLVED:

(a) That the report and recommendations be agreed for submission to the Executive, subject to an additional recommendation on a 6 month interim update of the recommendations, as referred to above

(b) That the 30 year business plan and the Asset Management Plan be submitted to the next meeting of the Committee for consideration

(c)  That the Committee be involved in determining the KPI’s that will be applicable when this is considered

The Chair thanked Maxine Holdsworth and Christine Short for attending

The draft recommendations were outlined for the Committee by the Vice Chair, Councillor Lukes, following which these main points were made –

·         Recommendation 3.3 should include the word ‘residents’ following the word ‘TRA’s’ in line 1

·         An additional recommendations should be added – Recommendation 3.4 to read – ‘ That all estate management staff have access to good quality information as to residents rights, so that this can be distributed amongst  residents groups, and community organisations. The Council should also try to maximise the recovery of any costs accrued by the Council as a result of faulty work by private landlords to Council property’

RESOLVED:

That, subject to the above additions to the recommendations, and the final report being agreed by the Chair/Vice Chair, the report be referred to the Executive for consideration

Matt West, Assistant Director of Property Services, was present and outlined the report

During consideration of the report the following main points were made –

·       A dashboard is a summary of data about a service. It allows insights into business by viewing data from different angles. These should be easy to obtain and understand, allowing managers to focus on making improvements, rather than handling lots of data. Dashboards are becoming more and more common place in business and Councils

·       Current situation – operational dashboards for the following areas have been completed – repairs operations, gas servicing and repairs, repairs KPI’s, customer satisfaction, finance. The dashboards are built and tested, data cleaning is underway or completed, some analysis has taken place, high level managers have access, and some improvements to service stats due to focus from dashboards have taken place

·       Training and embedding – training was delayed by COVID, and a web based training model has had to be developed. Roll out training is due to all repairs managers in September and October. The training is half about technically using the dashboard to influence the improvement of repairs. Reports to monitor that managers are using the dashboard, and regular service level improvement meetings are taking place

·       Next steps – complete roll out, and review further feedback, and improvements. Complete second operational dashboard, push for direct link to more reactive data, monitor service improvements, consider further development for other areas

·       In response to a question as to whether it would be possible for Members to have access to the dashboard information, it was stated that this could be investigated as to whether this would be possible

·       In response to a question it was stated that there were van trackers in place, however there were clear guidelines about use, agreed with the Trade Unions. The trackers were not linked to the dashboards

RESOLVED:

That a visit be arranged for Members of the Committee in September in order to view the dashboard in operation, and this be combined with a visit to consider Repairs Feedback

The Chair thanked Matt West for his presentation

The Chair stated that he would welcome suggestions as to scrutiny review topics for the forthcoming municipal year for approval at the next meeting of the Committee

The Chair informed Members that he had received suggestions to date for the following topics to date – Partners handover of properties, Communal Heating, and a mini- review into Housing Associations nomination rights/loss of social housing

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted and that any suggestions for scrutiny topics should be notified to the Chair for consideration by the Committee at the next meeting