Agenda item

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

Following consideration of the Accommodation Procurement Strategy, it was noted that whilst the Committee had not challenged any of the recommendations in this report, it had concerns as to whether these savings could be achieved.

Katharine Nidd (Head of Financial Strategy, Planning & Commercial) introduced the report. The following key points were noted:

4.1.    Some of the context for the report had changed slightly as it was written before the Autumn statement that came out on 17^th of November 2022.

4.2.    The Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) that came out in July 2022, signalled that cuts of circa £14 million were needed for 23/24, out of which cuts of £3.6 million were identified in prior years leaving a gap of circa £10 million for next year. The savings proposals in this report were for this gap of £10 million.

4.3.    Since the Local Government Finance Settlement had not been confirmed yet, there was a risk that the MTFS savings target estimate may increase.

4.4.    Table 5.8 in the Mayor & Cabinet report listed the savings proposals that required member decisions. Table 5.13 listed the savings proposals that required officer decisions as per the scheme of delegation in the Council’s constitution.

4.5.    A member of the public was invited to address the Committee. They queried whether the tax rise and the plans to reduce the cap on Local Government spending would affect the residents in Lewisham Homes and if it would affect the services that Lewisham Homes and Lewisham Council provide. The response summarised that the Council would inevitably have to make cuts in order to set a balanced budget for next year, but it was currently going through that process now so more details could not be set out yet.

Jennifer Daothong (Executive Director for Housing, Regeneration & Public realm) introduced    the savings proposal HRPR_SAV_01. The following key points were noted:

4.6.    HRPR_SAV_01 proposal focused on the Temporary Accommodation (TA) Cost Reduction.

4.7.    There was an invest to save element to this proposal that required the funding of a dedicated project team who would work alongside the service to oversee a wide-ranging programme of interventions aimed at reducing overall spend on TA.

4.8.    Over a period of 3 years, net savings of a million pounds a year was expected. This would go some way to reducing the impact TA had on the general fund budgets.

Jennifer Daothong and Katharine Nidd responded to questions from the Committee – the following key points were noted:

4.9.    The Committee was keen to ensure that the lower cost of TA did not mean lower quality. The proposal recommended that the cost reduction would be achieved by reducing the number of people in nightly paid TA, using data to better understand the needs of the households in TA and by securing longer term placements at lower costs. This would not mean compromising the quality of TA provided.

4.10. The overall aim of the proposal was to ensure that households spent less time in TA and that households were not moved in-between TA placements multiple times. This was to ensure that households felt more settled and had more clarity about their situation in the longer term.

4.11. The level of outstanding debt set against the Housing service was remarkably low for a council run housing service signalling that the rent collection rate was very good. Although there was still room for improvement in the rates of collection for TA managed by Lewisham Homes. The Council was working together with Lewisham Homes to understand how to improve that.

4.12. The proposal that tenants pay for their own utilities would not be rolled out to all households in TA instantaneously. This scheme would be trialled as a pilot first and then rolled out more widely if possible. It was noted that these savings were identified for later years to try and minimise the risk of this coinciding with the current cost of living crisis.

4.13. The housing service had been restructured recently to tailor the service to be able to deal with the challenges arising from homelessness prevention. There was a need to explore additional routes to tenancy sustainability and the new dedicated project team would help identify some of those pathways.

4.14. The proposal to reduce spend on storage would be achieved through identifying and closing the storage accounts of households that were no longer supported by the council’s housing service.

4.15. A second member of the public was invited to address the Committee. In light of the autumn statement, they queried how the potential rise of council tax by 5% would affect local people. The full detail of what would happen to council tax was not yet available as the council would not be making any decisions until it had received the funding from central government which would not happen at least until December 2022.

RESOLVED: That the report be noted.

Following consideration of the Accommodation Procurement Strategy, it was noted that whilst the Committee had not challenged any of the recommendations in this report, it had concerns as to whether these savings could be achieved.