This item will be a presentation.

The Assistant Director of Housing presented the item to the committee and in doing so the following was discussed:

•               Last year a three year programme was started to deep clean communal areas of many blocks. This year it aimed to expand further and start a programme of repainting communal areas, where a need is identified;

•               In April the East caretaking team received 100% satisfaction from its residents, which means that the service was rated good or excellent by every resident who took part in the survey;

•               In relation to Tenancy management 3379 Audits had been completed since 2015, 17 Properties recovered by Fraud and 4 Right To Buys stopped;

•               The rents collection team met their target of 99%, 54% of this was a cash collected which is up by 2% from 2015;

•               The councils rent arrears for 2016-2017 was the lowest recorded figure in 10 years and of those arrears 67% are below £250. It was further pointed out that 70% of tenants had a clear rent account or were in credit;

•               Within the last 12 months the repairs service had undertaken over 34,000 repairs to the councils housing stock and in delivering these repairs had managed to achieve the highest customer satisfaction of 93%, this had been achieved through implementation of new processes of which has included repairs process and new call scripts, however one of the biggest factors was the team had managed to achieve first time fixes to 95% of these repairs;

•               Mears void turnaround time was now under 10 days;

•               Members were advised complaints were down by 22%, while compliments had risen up by 58%;

•               Safeguarding team  were working jointly assessing and meeting the needs of applicants facing Domestic abuse and;

•               There were currently 8202 residents on the Housing Register

Members were informed the ASB / Enforcement Team  had the first ever closure Order to evict a tenant and the council assisted Essex Police prosecute a resident to a 7 year custodial sentence for GBH by providing A CCTV package and witness statement.

Officers further notified the Committee of the work to date relating to the Housing Service review. Phase 1 of the review included:

·         Looking at how services were running

·         Identifying quick wins

·         Investigating longer term improvements and efficiencies

The Chair of the Committee commented that prior to the Assistant Director of Housing joining the Local Authority, the customer service performance was poor. Councillor Spillman asked if he was happy with the current performance.

The Assistant Director of Housing, replied he was happy with the improvement made, however there was more to do such as working with residents and changing mind sets. He explained that client care letters had been sent explaining what the council can do and what they could do to help themselves. He stated that dialogue with residents was an important first step.

The Chair of the Committee noted that there was a reference to the importance of homeless prevention in the recent Housing Service report to the Council.   He continued to comment that given the causes of homelessness in Thurrock it was not realistic to suggest that homeless prevention alone will effectively reduce the demands on the service.  

Councillor Pothecary reported that she had received negative commenting from residents relating to the caretaking service. She started on top of their rent; residents had to pay a service charge and were not seeing improvements.  Officers explained they were aware of certain blocks which had reported problems. It was explained that the caretaking service was to be reviewed as part of phase 2 of the Housing Review, however inspections were taking place.

Members discussed the Hubs in the borough advising members of the public on housing issues. Councillor Redsell stated she felt it was unsafe for volunteers to advice people of their housing issues as these were often confidential matters.  Officers notified the Committee that the role would be to offer first line support and advice such as which team to contact. It was not to complete or assist with case work. 

Standing Orders were suspended at 9.15pm to allow Members to complete the item. The Chair suggested a 10.00pm finish.

Councillor Allen queried what would happen if a resident was given the wrong advice. The Assistant Director of Housing assured Members that volunteers are the Hubs were only to offer frontline support and all volunteers were to be mentored and  fully training before they were to give any advice. He further commented that if a volunteer was not confident, they could always contact the Housing team.

Councillor Piccolo declared an interest in that he worked for the CVS which supported the volunteers the Hubs. He continued by commenting the main enquires received at the Hub relating to Housing matters was how to bid on a property and to log a repair.

RESOLVED that the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee noted the presentation.