Decision details

1.    To present to Executive the Directorate of Housing and Investment’s Asset Management Strategy.

2.    To propose that Executive resolves to adopt the strategy attached as ‘Appendix A’ to this report.

That the adoption of the Housing Asset Management Strategy attached as ‘Appendix A’ to this report be approved.

None.

In November 2023, the Council adopted its 30-Year HRA Business Plan, which sets out a series of core objectives, including:

·       Developing and improving core landlord services

·       Providing additional affordable housing

·       Regenerating our estates and neighbourhoods

·       Reducing our carbon emissions

Alongside development of the Business Plan, the Housing Assets directorate had also developed a series of policies to support effective delivery of its services. There remained a gap in the directorate’s governance ‘golden thread’, between the Business Plan and these policies; a Housing Asset Management Strategy had been identified as a means of bridging this gap, and would help ensure the Council met the requirements of the Regulator of Social Housing’s Consumer Standards that were introduced in April 2024.

The Strategy had four key outcomes:

• Health and safety compliance
• Planned investment
• Decarbonisation
• Responsive repairs (including aids and adaptations)

This Housing Asset Management Strategy set out how the Council would effectively maintain tenants’ homes. A separate ‘Land and Property Strategy’ was also being developed that would complement this Strategy, and would propose how the Council would acquire, dispose of, and make the most effective use of Housing land assets including garage sites and other types of under-utilised land.

The Strategy had been developed with tenants as its primary audience, with a more visual format and simplified content. It addressed all relevant parts of the Regulator’s Consumer Standards, and each of the four outcomes was accompanied by an action plan that set out key activities the directorate would undertake to further enhance and improve the quality of Council’s homes and how it engaged with tenants throughout. The action plan also identified key activities the Council needed to undertake to ensure it continued to meet the requirements of the Building Safety Regulator.

Lincoln Tenants’ Panel had been briefed on the Strategy and had given its support to the content and format.