Agenda item

Directorate Update Report - James Barrah, Simon Lewis, Ian Candlish, Chris Brown and Shari Hallett

Minutes:

Director of Housing and Communities Introduction

 

Unitary Authority

 

The Assistant Director updated the group on the Unitary Authority progress so far. Reported that a business case would be submitted in December. A letter to all tenants and leaseholders had been sent to inform everyone about the issues and to signpost where tenants can comment on both the Stronger Somerset and One Somerset proposals;

 

Brexit

 

Reported that the main impact of Brexit related to the supply chain for building materials. Work with suppliers was ongoing to ensure that we were aware of pressures as quickly as possible;

 

Covid -19

 

Reported that due to the second “lockdown” reception at the Deane House was again closed. Most services were still being delivered remotely with staff still working at home. A few non-essential activities involving extensive time required in people’s homes had been paused;

 

Housing Development and Regeneration Team

 

Reported that the Laxton Road developments would be ready to handover to the housing team in late December;

 

The Zero Carbon Pilot had formally started with pre-app planning discussion commencing with 39 units likely through the first five sites;

 

 

Housing and Communities Teams

 

Reported that SWT had 2 Extra Care Housing sites, Kilkenny and Wellington with on-site care provided by Way Ahead Care who were commissioned by Somerset County Council;

 

Sheltered Housing update

 

The Sheltered Housing team had continued to be affected by long term staff sickness and reduced work hours. Additional staff have been recruited to make sure that we can give a good level of services to our tenants. We are also utilising the Deane helpline for welfare checks;

 

The usage of meeting hall will be revisited in early December;

 

Lettings have now resumed with properties being advertised on Home Finder Somerset. The team are working to COVID-19 risk assessments and procedures ensuring that they are in line with safe working practices;

 

A Homeless Plus Officer funded from Hinkley had now been put in post who will help support tenants who want to downsize, exchange their properties;

 

Income

 

Our Christmas Rent Campaign will be starting soon which will include sending text messages and providing information on paying rent on the website and also taking part in the Talking Café held by Village Agents to promote priority payments over the Christmas period;

 

Anti-Social Behaviour

 

ASB/neighbour nuisance was still high on the team’s agenda. The lockdown has again caused minor nuisance cases coming to our attention. COVID-19 nuisance letters will be sent out to try to deal with this;

 

Tenancy/Estates

 

The team were now preparing scheduled walkabouts to identify areas that need attention on the estates. Work to continue Annual Tenancy checks were ongoing;

 

Housing Performance

 

This team has been created to drive service improvements to our customer experience and service delivery as well as overseeing housing governance, risk and performance. Key pieces of work to be completed by Christmas are;

·       Christmas Newsletter to tenants and leaseholders;

·       STAR survey council tenants and leaseholders. This is a comprehensive satisfaction survey completed every two years by an independent company.  Results will be published in the new year;

·        2019-20 Annual Report to tenants;

·       Restarting meetings of our Tenants’ Strategic Group and Tenants’ Action Group;

·       Review of our complaints process including self-assessing our performance against the new Housing Ombudsman code;

 

Comments made by members of the group included, responses are in italic;

 

What is the general feeling of tenants, members of staff under a unitary authority? The government has put back the devolution white paper which would have potentially suggested wider scale change across the public sector, however they have still said that they would still welcome three county areas to submit bids for the changes to the structure of Local Government and Somerset is one of those so therefore we become proactive in that issue and working with the other districts on the strongest Somerset bid. So far in terms of staff’s views it is a mixed bag in terms of some wariness around change as staff have already gone through a fundamental change with the creation of Somerset West and Taunton. Having to go through further change is not ideal for many people. My main objective is that we give good service to tenants;

 

Resolved that the report be noted.

 

 

Supporting documents: