Agenda item

Objective:To provide the Committee with an understanding of our property compliance status as of 31 July 2024 and the planned improvements needed to address areas of non-compliance.  Appendix ii provides an additional information relating to the management of fire safety.

The Interim Service Improvement Lead provided the Committee with the following verbal update:

-       Review carried out on the out-of-date fire risk actions.  Some are recommendations rather than actions, which have now been removed from the main list to allow focus to be maintained on the priority actions.  These recommendations will be considered again once this work has been completed.  This has reduced the number of actions to 139 within three strategic areas:

o   74 outstanding actions relating to fire doors and windows, down from 89 – contracts are now in place and surveys started to address these replacements and repairs.  Demand in the sector is still providing challenging lead times but it is anticipated that the high risk actions will be completed by December.  A specialist is being recruited to manage the works being carried out on site.

o   57 outstanding actions relating to compartmentation, down from 66.  Works have been issued to the contractor to start to plan in the work and it is anticipated this will commence in the next 2 weeks.  Individual specific letters are being developed with the Comms team to tenants who will be affected by the work.  Accessibility of the letter is being considered and we will confirm whether any tenants require translations.

o   8 outstanding actions relating to escape routes, down from 10.  Some of these are associated with the location of bin storage areas.  Visits are taking place to review where these could be moved to.

-       The 5-year electrical checks are down to 81 from 349.  These are coming down at a consistent rate.  One property has not been inspected in 10-years due to issues with access but is currently not tenanted.

-       Asbestos surveys and remediation contracts are now in place and will be signed by the end of the week.  Work on carrying out the asbestos checks will start in the next 2 weeks.

-       4 out of date actions, down from 9, relating to water safety.  These are mainly due to access issues with communal water tanks in loft spaces.  All outstanding actions are scheduled for completion by the end of the week.

The Committee’s discussion raised the following points:

-       Where actions involve communal areas for multiple properties these should be reported by number of homes impacted.

-       Actions relate to a range of issues including repairs, required replacements, missing certification, and compartmentation issues arising from cables, pipes etc. being run through cupboards and walls.  The Committee would benefit from greater granularity, detail and examples in the report to enable them to understand what actions involve. 

-       Currently private landlords are required to carry out electrical surveys every 5-years, social landlords will be migrating to this from 10-year inspections in the new year.  Our policy has already moved towards this requirement.

-       Whilst there is insulation on some CBC properties this is not of the sort used at Grenfell.  Intrusive surveys are being carried out to ensure that there are no issues with the external wall insulation that is present.

-       If the Committee wish to have training sessions between meetings to raise awareness these can be provided.

-       Whilst properties may be compliant issues may still exist for tenants living within them, so we need to ensure that tenants are able to evacuate.  Work is being carried out to put together premises information to include details of tenants who cannot self-evacuate that can be provided to emergency services.  Consideration is being given to how we can maintain communication with tenants through tenancy audits and encouraging proactive engagement to ensure information is correct throughout their tenancies. 

-       Properties with capped gas still require a Landlord Gas Safety Record (LGSR).  We will be reviewing how we support tenants in capped properties and considering how issues can be resolved.

-       Currently considering what information from the asbestos surveys will be brought into QL from the contractors’ system to ensure that sufficient information us connected to the property.  Currently tenants are provided with full asbestos assessment on request, in the future the contractor will be required to provide them with a plain English version of this information.

-       There were a larger number of fire risk actions as we have chosen to carry out some more intrusive type 3 risk assessments, these were also carried out in a short space time leading to deadline challenges.  To address the timing issue some fire risk assessments are being brought forwards to allow a phased approach to surveys in the future.