Issue - meetings

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

Matter for Decision

The report presented details of anticipated variances from budgets, where resources were requested to be carried forward into the 2024/25 financial year in order to undertake or complete activities anticipated to have taken place in 2023/24.

Decision of Executive Councillor for Housing and Homelessness

      i.         Agreed the provisional carry forward requests, totalling £731,520 as detailed in Appendix A, subject to the final outturn position.

Reason for the Decision

As set out in the Officer’s report.

Any Alternative Options Considered and Rejected

Not applicable.

Scrutiny Considerations

The Committee received a report from the Head of Finance and Business Manager.

The Head of Finance and Business Manager said the following in response to Members’ questions:

      i.         In response to a question regarding work the council had undertaken in preparation for the council becoming regulated by the Housing Regulator:

a.    referred to the Rent Regulation Error Refund / Remediation report (minute reference 24/20/HSC) where the council had reported rent errors to the regulator and would be correcting the errors from April 2024; and

b.    referred to the Compliance Report (minute reference 24/15/HSC) and noted that data needed to be held in a particular format so work was being undertaken to streamline the way the council held data to ensure the council could respond to queries from the Regulator.

    ii.         The Council could be inspected by the Regulator at any point and the Council had put a project in place to ensure that the council was compliant with recently published consumer standards and actions were put in place where improvement was needed.

   iii.         The Transformation Fund was set up to allow the Housing Service to be able to respond to changes in legislation, requirements from the Regulator and to allow the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) to contribute to the corporate costs of transformation as part of the Our Cambridge programme. Delegated authority was given to Directors to spend this fund. Officers approved the funding of two temporary fixed term posts (Housing Improvement Manager and Housing Improvement Officer) to deliver a restructure of the City Services Group to improve services in the Estates and Facilities repairs area.  

  iv.         DCM work was being picked up by a variety of officers; a vacant post was used to combine the work into one job role.

    v.         Officers would provide information on what categories of expenditure the transformation fund was being used for within the HRA Outturn Report.     

The Committee resolved (by 9 votes to 0 with 3 abstentions) to endorse the recommendation.

The Executive Councillor approved the recommendation.

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

No conflicts of interest were declared by the Executive Councillor.