Items
No. |
Item |
1. |
Confirmation of the Chair and Vice Chair PDF 19 KB
Decision:
Resolved: to confirm Councillor Carl Handley
as Chair and Councillor Peter Bernards as Vice Chair of the Select
Committee.
Minutes:
Resolved: to confirm Councillor Carl Handley
as Chair and Councillor Peter Bernards as Vice Chair of the Select
Committee.
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2. |
Minutes of the meeting held on 5 March 2014 PDF 43 KB
Decision:
Resolved: to agree the minutes of the meeting
held on 5 March 2014 as an accurate record.
Minutes:
Resolved: to agree the minutes of the meeting
held on 5 March 2014 as an accurate record.
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3. |
Declarations of interest PDF 26 KB
Decision:
Councillor Wise declared a non-prejudicial
interest in relation to item four as a member of the board of
Lewisham Homes.
Minutes:
Councillor Wise declared a non-prejudicial
interest in relation to item four as a member of the board of
Lewisham Homes.
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4. |
Lewisham Homes annual report and business plan PDF 39 KB
Additional documents:
Decision:
Resolved: to note the report.
Minutes:
Andrew Potter (Chief Executive,
Lewisham Homes) introduced the report; the following key points
were noted:
- Lewisham Homes (LH)
was a company wholly owned by the Council to deliver housing
management services.
- The business and
delivery plan set out LHs’ performance for the previous year
(2013/14) and its priorities for the coming year
(2014/15).
- One of the key
challenges in the previous year had been achieving the target for
rent income collection.
- LH had successes in
the previous year in re-letting properties; the delivery of the
decent homes programme and performance on repairs.
- In the coming year LH
would prioritise- customer service; improvement of communal areas;
delivery of decent homes and the delivery of the New Homes Better
Places programme.
In response to questions from
the Committee, the following key points were noted:
- Complaints about
decent homes work often had to be referred to contractors. This
increased the amount of time it took to resolve issues, which was
the principal reason for the target for responding to complaints
being missed.
- The last customer
survey had been in 2012, when customer satisfaction was 69%. The
Housing Matters consultation found that customer satisfaction was
above 70%. It was hoped that when the next satisfaction survey was
carried out, satisfaction would be much closer to LH’s 80%
target.
- Grounds maintenance
had previously been provided by contractors. In the coming year,
these services would move to the direct management of Lewisham
Homes. It was hoped that this, along with other improvements in the
core delivery of services would improve levels of
satisfaction.
- The new build
programme had been added to the organisational risk register in
recognition that this was something that the organisation had not
done before.
- The ‘failure to
secure the future of Lewisham Homes’ had been added to the
risk register because the management agreement with the Council was
due for renewal.
- There were currently
14 board members, with space for one more resident board member,
who was in the process of being recruited.
- LH had an enforcement
team, which gathered information and intelligence from a range of
sources to identify illegal occupants.
- A system of routine
tenancy checks using photographic ID was already in
place.
- Around 50 illegal
occupants a year were removed from LH properties.
- LH would soon be
introducing a credit score checking system. This had been
successful in other boroughs at identifying illegal
occupants.
- Checks were also
carried out on people who wanted to exercise the right to buy. A
number of cases each year were referred to the Council’s
anti-fraud and corruption team.
- It was difficult to
say where right to buy tenants raised the capital required to buy
their homes because each case was different.
- The number of homes
bought under right to buy had increased from 17 two years ago to
110 last year. This was thought to be the direct result of the
increase in the right to buy discount to £100k. LH re-let
around 500 homes a year so a loss of 100 lets ...
view the full minutes text for item 4.
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5. |
Homelessness applications and performance PDF 82 KB
Decision:
Resolved: to note the report.
Minutes:
Mark Dow (Housing Needs
Manager) introduced the report; the following key points were
noted:
- As previously
reported to the Committee, there had been an increase of 28% in the
number of household accepted by the Council as homeless in the past
four years.
- The increased use of
bed and breakfast accommodation and its associated costs had been
noted in a report to Committee in early 2014.
- In the past, people
presenting as homeless typically had difficulties with parents or
other relatives, however the recent increase appeared to be from
people who had trouble sustaining their tenancies in the private
rented sector.
- A great deal of
effort had been focused on preventative rather than reactive
work.
- It was anticipated
that there would be a fall in demand this year – as well as
an increase in the level of lets available, which should help to
alleviate the pressure on temporary accommodation.
In response to questions from
the Committee, the following key points were noted:
- The rollout of
universal credit continued to be delayed by the government.
Nonetheless, information from the direct payments pilot in
Southwark showed some positive results.
- The cost of
homelessness was the second biggest budget pressure for the
Council, behind the cost pressure associated with people with no
recourse to public funds.
- There had been times
in the past few years that there weren’t any households
temporarily accommodated in bed and breakfast– but the
current political and economic climate, combined with the lack of
housing supply had created an increasingly challenging
situation.
Resolved: to note the
report.
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6. |
New Homes Better Places: update PDF 46 KB
Decision:
Resolved: to note the report and to receive a
further update on the Programme at the meeting of the Committee
scheduled for 2 September.
Minutes:
Jeff Endean (Housing Strategy and Programmes
Manager) introduced the report; the following key points were
noted:
- The delivery of the new homes
programme was owned by the Council, but it was being delivered by
Lewisham Homes.
- The ambition was to build 500 new
homes over four years.
- The first of the new homes was due
to be completed in early 2015.
- The first set of 100 homes had been
agreed for consultation across six sites.
- The intention was to maximise the
funding available for the delivery of new social homes. In order to
do this, the proposal was to sell 20% of the homes being
built.
- Lewisham had £44m available
for the New Build Programme, which in itself would enable the
construction of around 300 new homes. The previous decision to
build some homes for private sale would allow any profits from
these sales to be used for the construction of new social homes.
This approach would enable the construction of approximately 70
additional social homes.
In response to questions from the Committee,
the following key points were noted:
- There was a range of consultation
being undertaken as part of the new build programme. There was
general consultation around the sites of new builds, specific
consultation with tenants and leaseholders and statutory
consultation with secure tenants.
- It was agreed that the Council could
learn how to better coordinate its consultation to ensure that the
messages being received by the community were as consistent as
possible.
- More complex developments, involving
wider estate regeneration would be brought forward in latter phases
of the new build programme.
- The consultation would focus on
ensuring that, by the time of planning application, all parties
were informed about the changes being proposed.
Resolved: to note the report and to receive a
further update on the Programme at the meeting of the Committee
scheduled for 2 September.
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7. |
Select Committee work programme PDF 1 MB
Additional documents:
Decision:
Resolved: to agree that
the Committee’s suggestions be added to the provisional work
programme for submission to Overview and Scrutiny Business
Panel.
Minutes:
Timothy Andrew (Scrutiny Manager) introduced
the report.
The Committee discussed the work programme and
agreed:
- To call an additional meeting on
2nd September in order to receive the New Homes Better
Places report in advance of Mayor and Cabinet on 3rd
September.
- To ascertain whether the Housing
Scrutiny Committee in Newham would be willing to facilitate a visit
from Lewisham’s Housing Select Committee.
The Committee also agreed to add the following
items to the Committee’s work programme:
- An examination of options for
households in housing association properties to downsize or move to
more accommodation more suited to their needs- focusing on the
contrast between policy and activity.
- A scoping report setting out the
options for a review of communal heating systems in new housing
developments.
- An invitation to registered
providers in order to assess their performance.
Resolved: to agree that
the Committee’s suggestions be added to the provisional work
programme for submission to Overview and Scrutiny Business
Panel.
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8. |
Referrals to Mayor and Cabinet
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