Issue - meetings

As per item 12.

The Committee considered the exempt information.

Report of the Director of Placemaking and Housing. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Council Housebuilding, Placemaking, and Development.

This report seeks Cabinet approval for the appointment of a sales and marketing agent identified through competitive tendering to provide a variety of services in relation to the homes that the Council will build for market sale in order to cross-subsidise the delivery of a new generation of council homes for local residents.

The Cabinet Member for Council Housebuilding, Placemaking, and Development introduced the report which sought approval for the appointment of a sales and marketing agent identified through competitive tendering to provide a variety of services in relation to the homes that the Council would build for market sale in order to cross-subsidise the delivery of a new generation of council homes for local residents.

It was noted that the appointment for sales and marketing agent services was capped at a maximum of £3.9 million over five years.

The Cabinet Member continued to outline the following issues which supported the  need to take the  decision forward:

-       High demand for council homes coupled with commitment to delivering high quality council homes and to enable viable delivery, there had been access to GLA grants and borrowing but in addition, there needs to be efficient market sales of private homes.

-       Assurance that the contract level was the maximum expenditure and decision did not mean that the Council would be spending the full amount.

-       Council did not have expertise for sales and marketing homes and the provider would be able to provide efficiencies and consistency of branding.

-       This was not an exclusive agreement, and the Council could use local estate agents as well for smaller purchases.

In response to questions from Cllr Cawley-Harrison, the following information was noted:

-       That the absolute maximum expenditure would be £3.9m as set out in the report. The estate agency services would be on a commission basis for each home sold and this was included in this figure, with the percentage commission set out in the exempt report.

-       There are no current plans for increase in the numbers of private homes provided to ensure viability.

-       This decision was a necessity to ensure that each housing delivery scheme, as it went forward, was financially viable, meeting the overall objectives of the housing delivery programme.

-        That in regard to the query on fees, section 6.17.1 – 6.17.7 of the report provided this information. In summary, this set out that £499,000 was for the consultancy items and the rest of expenditure was on fixed fee basis. The additional £3.4m expenditure was on a percentage fee basis and there would need to be a progression of sales to reach the £3.9m figure set out.

-       This was a competitive percentage fee offer, of which the detail was set out  in exempt part of report. If a different agreement had been sought on a site-by-site basis, this would not have been as competitive as the fixed fee offer for the Council.

-       The Council did not have a large sales programme to take forward of private homes but some individual large schemes, such as Ashley road depot and some later regeneration programmes, would have a higher concentration of homes that required marketing and local sales agents would struggle with these schemes.

Following consideration of the exempt information, it was

RESOLVED

To approve that a contract be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 47