Agenda item

The Panel received a report which provided an update on repairs performance in the housing service, following its transfer from the ALMO to the Council. The Report was introduced by Cllr Carlin, Cabinet Member for Housing Services, Private Renters and Planning as set out in the agenda pack at pages 9 to 16. Judith Page, Assistant Director for Property Services was also present for this agenda item. The following arose as part of the discussion on this report:

a.    The Cabinet Member acknowledged that a significant level of improvement was still needed in the housing repairs service to reach the standards that the Council and residents expected. At the point of transfer to the Council in June 2022, the service had experienced significant instability both internally and externally for the previous two and a half years.  The key issue was that a lot of the housing stock was old and in need of major works.

b.    In response to a request for clarification, officers acknowdged a typographical error on page one of the report and that the chart should state that restricted repairs came to an end in June 2021, rather than repairs.

c.    In response to a query about what was meant by a limited digital offer, the Panel was advised that repairs emails went into a centralised mailbox to customers services and that these had to be allocated from there.

d.    In response to a questions around KPIs and the percentage of appointments made and kept, the Cabinet Member advised that that this could be impacted by differing levels of priority. It was noted that the service was looking to publish reporting standards so that people would know how long they could expect to wait for a repair.

e.    In response to a question about the timeframe for improving repairs, the Cabinet Member advised that that this would be set out as part of the improvement plan coming to the next Panel meeting. February would fit with in with the wider project planning for this as well as the recruitment of the AD for Housing Services and an AD of Housing Management in January.

f.     Members advised that the stated 2.5% of repair jobs which resulted in a compliant, did not seem to reflect the level of complaints they were seeing in their casework. In response, the Cabinet Member commented that she would like to see this figure down to under 0.5% of complaints being escalated. Officers advised that they were bringing in a complex case team to deal with cases that had more than four repairs jobs scheduled. It was envisaged that adopting a casework management approach would help to bring down instances of complaints being escalated. Officers advised that part of the approach being adopted was to look at the wider culture of how the Council dealt with complaints.

g.    Members commented that their own experiences, even if it was just a perception, it seemed as though things only got done once a councillor had become involved. In response, the Cabinet Member commented that ultimately the problem was around not identifying service failures quickly enough.

h.    A Panel Member commented that they would like to see a system whereby feedback was provided to the ward councillor, so they could keep track of cases where they had escalated a complaint. Rather than the ward member only knowing that something had not been done when they were chased by the original complainant. The Cabinet Member acknowdged this point and reiterated that the key problem that needed to be resolved was identifying the initial service failing.

RESOLVED

Noted