Agenda item - Residents Question Time

Responses to items raised at the following four Tenant Only Meetings:

18/10/18 – East Residents p.13 – 21:

1. Future arrangements for repairs & maintenance of council housing

2. Cash rent payments for pensioners

1/11/18 – Central Residents p. 22 – 24:

3. Tenant scrutiny of repairs & maintenance service

23/10/2018 – West Residents p. 25 – 28:

4. Maintenance & protection of green areas

5. EDB underspend

01/11/2018 – North Residents p. 29-30

6. Field Officers

            Two of the four items were discussed by the Panel and Officers:

            Item 1 – p. 13 – Future arrangements for repairs & maintenance of council housing

46.1    Alan Cooke stated that he thought that there should have been more consultation on these issues than the four meetings and one thousand door-to-door surveys that were undertaken.  Glyn Huelin confirmed that his team had also consulted with residents at three rounds of Area Panel meetings and that they had received a large amount of           feedback through this.

46.2    Alan Cooke asked whether there would be sufficient scrutiny of the service and whether the Council might in future let questionable issues through without being challenged about them.  Glyn Huelin stated that the Council had set up three different ways of checking the future service : firstly, the Home Service Improvement Group would receive indicators on how the new service would work, secondly there would  be a continuation of resident inspectors work and thirdly a review paper would             be produced after three and then five years in order to assess and appraise the new service.

46.3    Janet Gearing asked if the Apprenticeship scheme would continue and Glyn Huelin confirmed that it would be continuing with exactly the same level of investment in apprentices.

46.4    The Chair stated that in the past, there had been complaints about Council operatives’ work and she questioned whether employees’ work records were looked at.  Glyn Huelin replied that employees were dealt with in exactly the same way by Mears as by the Council and both followed the probationary period system.  He confirmed that      quality assurance was important to the Council and that they would work with the internal audit team to check in-house services. He also confirmed that if residents had      concerns there was a multi-stage process to work through to ensure that these were dealt with.

            Item 2 - Cash rent payments for pensioners

46.5    Alan Cooke stated that although he had nominated this item, he could not see the point of this now in hindsight, since he was disappointed that Post Offices would not install paypoints which he felt was an important factor for pensioners.

46.6    RESOLVED – that the Panel agreed to note the report.