Agenda item

The Corporate Lead for Property and Assets report outlined the property and assets element of the housing service’s performance through quarter 4 of 2025/26.  The report covered the repairs, compliance and planned works functions within property and assets.  Regular performance reporting to the Housing Review Board ensured that oversight was maintained and enabled timely scrutiny and challenge, as expected under the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards.

Tenant satisfaction measures in repairs in maintenance continued to increase as a result of the repairs improvement plan and its delivery.

There was focus on customer engagement with work continuing with the Repairs and Maintenance Scrutiny Group, meet the contractor events, repairs updates to the Complaints Scrutiny Group, tenant engagement with new kitchen designs and a mapping workshop to consider the repairs customer journey.

Another area of focus had been on building capability for the surveyor capacity.  This involved:

·        Patched based working so that maintenance surveyors had operational areas.

·        Fully equipping the surveyors to properly identify issues in properties.

·        Coaching and training, internally and externally.

·        Issuing survey summary reports to customers to help tenants understand what was going on, why the works were taking place and when they could expect that to happen.

Good progress continued to be made in the introduction of the performance framework across property and assets.  The framework would provide consistent and robust performance reporting to the Regulator for Social Housing and other stakeholders, while clearly defining accountability for the delivery of the property and asset service areas.  As the framework became embedded as business as usual, it was anticipated that additional improvement opportunities would be identified and addressed.

Areas where the service was experiencing challenges were:

·        Disrepair cases.

·        Property and asset related complaints.

·        Voids performance.

·        A slight improvement in the percentage of repairs completed within target.  A winter plan would be put in place for 2026/27 to deal with increased demand.

In terms of void performance the void lifecycle process was mapped out and a new classification framework established.  The status of all 170 vacant properties at that time were reviewed and categorised.  There had also been a review of resources in terms of void surveying roles, planned works capability and asset planner capability.  The Corporate Lead for Property and Assets outlined future actions to the Board.

Internal compliance audits had taken place and actions were already being delivered.  Compliance was strong, with most areas consistently achieving 100% or improving compared to the previous month’s position.  Electrical compliance continued to improve with a focus on obtaining access to non-compliant properties.  The deterioration in gas compliance was due to delays with the supplier not booking in the tests on time.  The issue had been raised with the supplier and was being resolved as per the contract.  There were new compliance contracts for fire, radon and electrical, with contracts being developed for legionella and fire risk assessments.  The application of the performance framework had increased compliance assurance.  An internal promotion had strengthened the compliance function, with further recruitment underway for compliance and repairs administrator roles.  All other positions within property and assets were currently filled.

The Corporate Lead Property and Assets reported that the demand for adaptations was increasing, with a diverse range of requests; more for minor works rather than major works.  It was noted that the Council had to self-fund adaptations and requests were likely to increase further with Awaab’s law.  Awaab’s law was coming out in a phased approach with tough timeframes.

The Corporate Lead Property and Assets explained that planned works took time.  The planned works team had over 30 live projects at varying stages and examples of these were shown to the Board. Consideration was being given to the recruitment of an additional Planned Works Surveyor to process the increasing number of referrals into the programme of works.

In response to a question about kitchen and bathroom replacements the Corporate Lead Property and Assets replied that in terms of kitchen replacements there had been 81 undertaken in 2024/25, and three in 2025/26.  He gave context to this in terms of the contract which was not continued with and resources used to resolve this.  100 kitchen replacements were planned for 2026/27.  The bathroom replacement and decarbonisation programmes demonstrated a similar theme.  Planned works figures would be provided in future reports but did not always reflect the responsive repairs and the overall picture.  The Director – Housing and Health reported that the turnaround in the programme was incredible and that it was not a quick process.

A request was made for ward members to be notified of void properties in their area.  Officers explained that this was not practical operationally.  Challenges already existed in the void process and officers did not want to complicate the administrative process anymore.  Members asked for a simplified report relating to voids.  The Board were advised that a lunchtime learning session on voids and the disposals was planned for May.  It was acknowledged that long term voids had an impact on the figures and the team were congratulated on a transformational job over the last 12 months.

RESOLVED:  that the housing performance report – property and assets, quarter 4 2025/26 is noted.