For elected Councillors on the Panel to elect a chair.

Councillor Hollick was elected Chair.

The Quorum for this Panel is three and substitutes are allowed.

Linda Hill sent her apologies.

Officer: Andrew Brown, Scrutiny Officer

Telephone: 01865 252230

Email: abrown2@oxford.gov.uk

This item presents for discussion the Housing Panel work programme.

The work programme was noted.

Officer: Andrew Brown, Scrutiny Officer

Telephone: 01865 252230

Email: abrown2@oxford.gov.uk

This report contains outcomes at August 2014 for the set of housing performance indicators chosen by members the Scrutiny Committee.  Performance indicators are grouped according to the themes chosen by the Panel:

·                     Welfare reform and the housing crisis.

·                     Housing supply.

·                     Estate regeneration.

The following points were noted in relation to housing performance measures:

HC016 – Assurances were received that there were no adverse funding implications as a result of slippage.

CA001 – A fuller response could be provided on the causes of phase 1 slippage on the Barton development.

NI154 – There was no reason to believe that developers were stockpiling land.  Delays were due to the availability of materials but delivery was generally picking up.

NI155 – Officers provided clarity about which figures related to affordable rents and which figures included other affordable tenures such as shared ownership.

HC014 – The Panel questioned the homelessness figures.

CS005 – The Panel welcomed efforts to improve the time taken to process new benefit claims and the introduction of a new electronic form.  The Panel received assurances that paper forms would remain in place for the time being.

Officer: Gary Parsons, Housing Strategy and Performance Manager

Telephone: 01865 252711

Email: gparsons@oxford.gov.uk

Panel Members were encouraged to contribute to the consultation, which runs from 22 October 2014 until 1 December 2014. 

The consultation questions (and the list of specific groups to be consulted with) will be circulated to Panel Members for their input before being finalised.

The Panel agreed to review the Council’s Private Rented Sector Strategy when this has been developed.   

Officer: Helen Bishop, Head of Customer Services

Telephone: 01865 252233

Email: hbishop@oxford.gov.uk

The Panel heard that Rent Arrears performance is ahead of target.  The collection rate has improved despite more people now managing their own benefits.

A tracing service is being used to obtain the contact details of former tenants but this is not a debt collection agency.

The Panel queried the rise in average arrears for phase 3 direct payment cases.  This response was received following the meeting:

The 11 cases in rent arrears is out of a total of 145 tenants that were transferred to direct payments in the third phase. 

We have had five tenants that have switched back to receiving their housing benefit as a credit to their rent account due to not being able to sustain payments. 

The reason for the overall increase in arrears was that two tenants were unable to pay their monthly payment at the end of the month.  The team have contacted the two tenants and both accounts have reduced their rent arrears to previous month’s levels as a result.

The Panel heard that the City Council is on track to spend all its Discretionary Housing Payment money, although this was also the case at the same stage last year.

The Panel questioned what level of support tenants receive with the process of arrears escalations.  Officers advised that personal contact is proactively made with tenants throughout the process, and agreed to provide case studies in a future Rent Arrears Report.

Officer: Stephen Clarke, Head of Housing

Telephone: 01865 252447

Email: sclarke@oxford.gov.uk

The Panel were satisfied that the framework set out in the report is sensible and fair, and fully endorse this.

Members noted that there is no provision for leaseholders to pay into a sinking fund to cover the cost of major works.  To introduce a sinking fund now for existing leaseholders would involve changing the terms of all leases, while establishing a sinking fund for new leaseholders would create a new level of administration but with few benefits to start with, so there isn’t a strong case for doing this.

Notes of the meetings held on 3 and 29 April 2014.

The Panel approved the notes of the meetings held in April 2014.

15 January 2015 (proposed Housing Revenue Account scrutiny session)

22 January 2015

4 February 2015

An additional Housing Panel meeting has been scheduled for 10 December 2014.