Agenda item

Objective: To provide the Committee with key performance information relating to voids, arrears, day to day repairs, ASB and property compliance.

The Director of Governance, Housing and Communities introduced the report and highlighted that it provided a proposed framework to be used moving forwards. She thanked the Governance, Risk and Assurance Manager for her work preparing the framework. She explained that the framework provides a suite of KPIs that will be reported on a monthly basis and shared with the Compliance Monitoring Group which is composed of officers and the Chair of the Cabinet Housing Committee. The framework also includes how exceptions will be reported.

The Director of Governance, Housing and Communities highlighted the following compliance matters:

-       Of the four new high-risk actions reported at 3.1.4, three have now been completed. The remaining outstanding high-risk action will be added to the compartmentation contract which is due to start in mid-October. Five of the seven new medium risk actions have now been completed and we are working with experts to find solutions for the two outstanding, more complicated actions.

-       Legacy risk actions are currently still recorded in the old spreadsheet method (new actions have been inputted into a more-automated system that allows reports to be run immediately). Legacy actions have reduced from 49 to 42, as seven actions relating to fire doors have been completed.

-       At the Chair’s request a detailed breakdown of risk actions has been included at appendix 5 to show actions by block, what is happening and what mitigations are in place. Actions 1-6,10, 22, 24 and 29 have now been completed. The report reflects a point in time and will be updated regularly.

-       A new scorecard format has also been included to quickly and clearly show where we are compliant, non-compliant and what actions need to be followed up.

-       The KPIs included in appendix 6 are being shared with the Committee for the first time. It is the intention to develop this further and mirror the approach demonstrated in the compliance scorecard.

The Chair thanked the Compliance Team for the work carried out to ensure that data collection, consistency, and the system have improved. Providing better data, processes and the reports that the Committee need to fulfil their role.

The Committee’s discussion raised the following points:

-       The fire doors scheduled to be fitted in September have now been fitted.

-       An inspection took place at a leaseholder property when it was meant to be limited to tenant properties. The contractor was not aware they were carrying out tests beyond their remits and revealed that fire doors are not compliant, which the leaseholder is now responsible for resolving. There is a consistent theme of blind spots around leaseholders which officers have noted.

-       Quality assurance checks will be carried out by the Head of Regulatory Compliance, once they have taken up the post, and the Governance, Risk and Assurance Manager, supported by the council’s data analyst. The outcomes of these checks will be shared with the appropriate meeting for scrutiny.

-       It was noted that the report shows that arrears are increasing. As mentioned at a recent meeting a lot of tenants are experiencing issues following their migration to Universal Credit and are ending up in arrears despite doing everything right. The arrears position is ahead of target and the arrears are currently lower than the same point last year. There is work to do in regards to the report as the correct targets need to be entered, the next report will include these.

-       Currently the spike in homelessness applications has not been explored in regards to what is driving the increase. Exceptions reporting will identify issues that can be discussed with managers responsible for that information to explore the matter, ideally this would have happened prior to the meeting. We are currently still streamlining the data collection and reporting process. We will ensure this information is provided by the appropriate manager before the next meeting.

The Committee unanimously approved the recommended performance framework process and noted the compliance information.