Issue - meetings

This item was chaired by Diana Minns (Vice Chair / Tenant Representative).

Matter for Decision.

To consider the Tenant and Leaseholder surveys that had been carried out in June 2014 and the proposals going forward.

Decision of the Executive Councillor for Housing:

     i.        Agreed the approach to further exploring perceptions of and reasons for any lower levels of satisfaction across the range of housing services, and methods to address them, as outlined in Appendix A of the Officer’s report.

Scrutiny Considerations.

The Committee received a report from the Resident Involvement Facilitator who presented the results of the Tenant and Leaseholder surveys that had been carried out in June 2014. In total 1888 tenants and 191 leaseholders had responded to the survey: response rates of 28% and 18% respectively.

In response to the Committees’ comments, Officers, the Director of Community and Customer Services stated the following:

     i.        The areas of pavements, fencing, pathways and communal areas were in the programme of works for the next financial year and had been pre-surveyed.

    ii.        Work had started on looking at parking, including garages, many of which were not fit for purpose.

   iii.        Acknowledged that it was important not to drop the standards of cleaning as the tenant and leaseholders paid for this service unlike other areas of the City Council’s contract.

  iv.        The handling of complaints would continue to be dealt with in a transparent and honest environment.

   v.        Various information was available with regards to repairs, such as the Star Survey which had showed a slippage in customer satisfaction. This related mainly to the planned works programme. In context the first ten months over 1400 repairs had been undertaken with a good satisfaction follow up survey that did necessarily match the response in the original survey. A follow up survey also highlighted any issues which could be resolved quickly.

  vi.        The number of returns to the survey was sufficient to give confidence in the results.

 vii.        In terms of the focus group a random sample would be taken to communicate to those individuals who had completed the survey. Efforts would also be made to contact those people who would not usually respond to surveys such as young people.

viii.        Agreed it was pleasing to note that the tenants felt that additional social housing was required.

The Committee:

Resolved unanimously to approve the recommendation.

The Executive Councillor for Housing approved the recommendation.

Conflicts of Interest Declared by the Executive Councillor (and any Dispensations Granted).

No conflicts were declared by the Executive Councillor.