The Housing Group Board of Directors has submitted a report seeking agreement to a set of policies relating to rent, lettings and debt recovery as these are matters reserved to the Shareholder.

Recommendation:

That the Housing Group Shareholder resolves to:

1.       Agree the Reserved Policies: Rent & Lettings and Debt Recovery

The Chair of the Housing Group Board of Directors presented the policies relating to rent, lettings and debt recovery.  She explained that these are matters reserved to the Shareholder and that a further policy on Sales would be submitted later in the year. She said that these policies were necessary for the Housing Group to be able to manage effectively the first homes from Barton Park which would be handed over in the summer of 2018. In drawing up all policies the principle adopted is to mirror as far as is practicable those of the Council.

The Chair apologised for a number of typographical errors and said that the policy Rent & Lettings policy would need to be updated to remove the reference to market rents on page 19 of the report.  She said that the documents would be corrected prior to publication and suggested that authority to agree the final documents might be delegated to the Directors of the Housing Group in consultation with the Chair of the Shareholder meeting.

The Shareholder resolved to:

1.               Agree the Reserved Policies: Rent & Lettings and Debt Recovery; and

2.               Delegate authority to finalise the wording of those policies to the Chair of the Shareholder meeting in consultation with the Directors of the Housing Group.

Councillor Smith joined the meeting at the end of this item.

The Housing Group Shareholder will be asked on 20 March to agree the Reserved Policies: Rent and Lettings and Debt Recovery.

Stephen Clark introduced the report, and explained that the rent and lettings, and debt recovery policies of Oxford City Housing Limited (OCHL) were all decisions reserved to the shareholder. A shareholder meeting was scheduled for 20 March 2018 to adopt the draft policies. Key issues raised during the discussion included:

·         Service level agreements were being developed in time for the first phases of development at the Barton site, which was scheduled for June 2018.

·         The policies presented in the report were intended to broadly reflect the content of the policies adopted by the City Council.

·         The reference to calculating rent increases based on the 11 previous CPI indices would be better explained as the previous 11 months.

·         That any maximum rent price increases must be stated in the rent policy in order for OCHL to be able to raise rents. The maximum rent increase outlined in the policy was CPI + 6%. However, this was to allow for flexibility in the policy, and did not represent the actual increases that tenants would pay.

·         That service charge overpayments during any given year would be offset in the next years’ service charge. Only the cost of the service provided would be passed on to tenants.  

·         Any tenant unable to pay their rent would be managed under the debt recovery policy.

·         Any personal debt written off under the policy would not affect an individual’s credit score.  

·         Any person declared bankrupt could not be ‘written on’ and pursued for outstanding debts.

·         The rent policy would need to be reviewed after HM Government issued guidance on the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, and the mandatory arrangements for flexible fixed term tenancies.

·         Council tenants placed in housing associations accommodation were granted lifetime tenancies.

The Panel agreed to note the report.