Agenda item - New Community Engagement Team

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Agenda item

New Community Engagement Team

There is no report for this item; an update will be given at the meeting.

 

Minutes:

6.1          Emma Mc Dermot, Head of Communities & Equality, introduced the new community engagement team which pooled knowledge and skills from the Resident Involvement Officers and the Neighbourhoods and Communities Team to create a single face for resident issues. The method of contact and frontline capacity would remain the same and the teams were funded by the HRA and the General Fund.

 

6.2          Councillor Mears stated that the HRA, which was paid for using social rents, subsidised the General Fund to ease their deficit using the HRA surplus. Similar city-wide teams, such as Field Officers, carried out other enforcement remits unrelated to Housing, whilst being largely funded by the General fund thus short-changing tenants.

 

6.3          Leaseholders said that the HRA was also funded by the leaseholder service charge and that only half of councils blocks housed leaseholders, Martin Reid responded that this issue would be directed to the LAG with a report.

 

6.4          Emma Mc Dermot responded that the amount of HRA funding to the service had not changed and the money from the General Fund had been granted through management cuts – not subsidised from other channels.

 

6.5          Sam Warren, Community Engagement Manager, stated that as the manager of the new team that they would take on residents’ concerns and they would be supporting tenants on several issues in Housing that were not previously supported.

 

6.6          In response to Councillor Williams asking for funding statistics, Emma Mc Dermot stated the statistics were clear, approved by lead members and scrutinised by tenants.

 

6.7          Marin Reid commented that when the Field Officers had attended the previous Panel, HRA funding was also raised and that an action taken was to provide a spending breakdown for information which they would now duplicate for the Community Engagement Team.

 

6.8          RESOLVED: That the Panel agreed to note the report.

 


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