Agenda item

To receive the period 5 budget monitoring report and consider and approve any relevant budget virements.

TO FOLLOW

RECEIVED the period 5 budget monitoring report, introduced by Neville Murton, Head of Finance, Accounting & Control.

The Committee reviewed the Council’s latest financial position covering the revenue and capital monitoring and questioned the rising cost of temporary accommodation. 

a.         Temporary Accommodation

NOTED that Denise Gandy (Director of Housing Demand) provided the following information in response to questions:

 i.             the council had a duty to provide people with housing and Haringey currently had 3000 households in temporary accommodation. 400 of these were single, vulnerable households and approximately 700 were households with at least one child;

ii.             a range of temporary accommodation facilities were used by the council, some of which were cost neutral such as hostels.  However, the level of supply had reduced from 1000 to 650 in 3 years and other London boroughs were experiencing similar pressures;

iii.             there were currently 1400 Haringey residents in nightly rated accommodation.  The council leased some properties at a good rate but landlords were moving away from long-term leases to nightly lease rates, which were increasing significantly. London-wide conversations were taking place to attempt to limit increasing costs;

iv.             options included sourcing out-of-London accommodation and the council was also looking at how to control day to day bookings to ensure costs were minimised, including moving those in the most costly accommodation into cheaper housing;

v.             sub-regional work was being done to consider how the market could be controlled and how councils, which were all in demand for properties, could avoid outbidding each other for properties;

vi.             targets were set for housing teams to prevent homelessness and reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation.  Preventing homelessness was going well but there were limited options for people to move out of temporary accommodation and the council needed to invest in acquiring properties;

vii.             a future housing supply strategy and temporary accommodation strategy would be presented to members, included options for shared hostels and accommodation further away as fewer households will be able to afford London rentals as a result of the benefit caps;

viii.             currently temporary accommodation placements were London wide, mainly Haringey and Enfield, and towards Broxbourne. Strict rules existed relating to school placements when considering where to house people to protect the key years in education.  In response to concerns raised it was emphasised that, when housing families, consideration was given to  special education needs and other specific criteria and not just school location;

ix.             when officers met homeless people their focus was to place them wherever possible but longer term placements needed to look in detail at social care needs in general rather than schooling in isolation;

x.             the temporary accommodation team saw approximately 2000 households a year. 650 of these went through the temporary housing application. Some of these were placed in temporary accommodation while the application was considered.  However, only approximately 70 went into temporary accommodation;

xi.             Councillor Akwasi commended the work of the housing teams at Apex House and thanked officers for the serious frontline work which was becoming increasingly more challenging.

b.         Adult’s Services

The estimated overspend of £10.9m was a huge concern to the committee particularly the increased number of clients (100 more than at the start of the year).  It was reported that the council was working to further understand the drivers of the upward pressures.  Whilst there was no doubt about the increasing numbers of older people with complex needs, there were also some system inefficiencies and alternative pathways to be explored. 

RESOLVED to note the Council’s latest financial position.