Agenda item

Yvonne Fox, Assistant Director of Housing

a.    presented the Housing Scrutiny Sub Committee with an end of quarter report on performance for the fourth quarter of the year (January 2019 – March 2019)

b.    advised that of the 21 measures 12 were on or exceeding targets for the year and 8 had not met the targets set and 1 did not have a required target.

c.    referred to paragraph 4 of the report and highlighted areas of good performance:

·         Arrears as a percentage of rent debit

·         Percentage of all repairs carried out within time limits

·         Average days to resolve ASB cases

d.    further highlighted areas that had not achieved their target and explained the reasons for this:

·         Average re-let period – All dwellings (including major works) – (days)

·         Percentage of non-decent homes

·         Percentage of calls answered within 60 seconds

e.    invited committees questions and comments.

Question: Referred to performance indicator 85A in relation to allocations and highlighted that the target was 80% and Qu4 was 82.50%, and asked if this should read better than target?

Response: This would be double checked.

Question: Referred to the percentage of calls answered within 60 seconds and asked why calls were taking longer to be answered?

Response: Customers were using the website for basic queries which meant that Customer Services were dealing with more complex and multiple queries which were taking longer.

Question: Referred to the year-end arrears of £737,531 and asked how much would be written off and how much was recoverable?

Response: We tried to recover as much of the arrears as possible.Most write offs were when people had been made bankrupt and the courts determined how much of the debt to write off.

Question: Referred to performance indicator 48 relating to percentage of homes with valid gas safety and asked why the target was set at 99.96% and not 100%?

Response: There was always 1 or 2 properties that we could not get access to, therefore, a 100% target would be unachievable.

Question: Referred to paragraph 4.3 of the report and asked for clarification on how the ASB cases would be dip tested?

Response: A percentage of ASB cases would be pulled out and checked that the correct procedures were being adhered to and in accordance with the ASB accreditation requirements.

Question: Referred to voids and asked how sheltered accommodation affected the figures?

Response: Peoples aspirations had changed and they were choosing not to move to sheltered accommodation. When the sheltered accommodation properties were left empty for a while it would have an effect on void properties.

Question: Did the Lincoln Tenants Panel still view voids properties?

Response: Yes tenants inspected some voids properties once the repairs had been completed. The work was completed to a high quality and we could not understand why people did not want the sheltered accommodation.

Comment: This was common across the Country, peoples aspirations had changed.

Question: Had the Lincoln Tenants Panel been involved in the changes to the targets?

Response: Yes it would be considered at the next Lincoln Tenants Panel meeting.

 RESOLVED that the report be noted.