Agenda item

(Director of Communities) To consider the attached report.

The Select Committee received a report from the Director of Communities regarding the future use of Housing Service Strategies.

He explained that over many years, the Housing Service had formulated a suite of Housing Service Strategies that individually set out the detailed approach taken by the Council and its officers to various housing activities. All the service strategies were produced in a common format and were then reviewed and updated by officers every three years and reported to the Housing Select Committee for consideration. Around the same time, service strategies relating to landlord services were also reported to the Tenants and Leaseholders Federation for their views as well.

Following consideration of updated Service Strategies by the Select Committee and Tenants and Leaseholders Federation, the final version was then formally reported to the Housing Portfolio Holder for adoption.

The strategies were originally introduced at the time of the former Housing Inspectorate being set up and in anticipation of a formal Housing Inspection being undertaken. However, the inspectorate had closed down a number of years ago, yet the production, review and updating of the service strategies had continued.

The process from first setting out to update Service Strategies to the Housing Portfolio Holder adopting them usually took around 2-3 months and each Service Strategy took around 10 hours of officer time to review, update, report to and attend the Select Committee and Tenants and Leaseholders Federation and make the final report to the Portfolio Holder. There were currently 16 separate Housing Service Strategies.

The Communities Management Team (CMT) had recently considered the cost-benefits of spending the significant amount of time to update these Housing Service Strategies. They identified that although the general principles set out in the Service Strategies were followed, the Service Strategies were hardly ever referred to by officers between the three yearly reviews. Moreover, most of the actions included within the Action Plans had usually already been identified and planned prior to the relevant Service Strategy being updated and were included and monitored through the Communities Directorate’s Continuous Improvement Regime in any event.

The CMT was also aware that this approach to strategic service planning was not adopted by any of the other Directorates, Select Committees or Portfolio Holders. There was therefore an inconsistent approach both across the Council and the Communities Directorate. However, the CMT was also aware that the Select Committee appeared to find it useful to understand and review the Council’s approach to the various housing functions.

The CMT did believe that there would be real benefit in continuing to review, update and maintain some of the service strategies in some form, due to their particular strategic importance or a legal requirement.

It was advised that the views of the Tenants and Leaseholders Federation had not been sought on this issue. However, the Chairman of the Federation advised the Select Committee that his members preferred discussing tenant orientated matters rather than strategies. He felt that perhaps two strategies per annum for discussion would suffice. The Select Committee had mixed feelings about reducing the service strategies as they found them useful and informative. Officers suggested that a further report be submitted to the Select Committee recommending that the number of strategies should be reduced, with some of them being combined, significantly reduced in content and reviewed every 5 years, instead of every 3 years.

RESOLVED:

That a report be submitted to the Select Committee recommending a reduction in the number of service strategies, with significantly reduced content and that they be reviewed every 5 years instead of every 3 years.