Issue - meetings

Approval for the tendering and award of contract(s) to deliver energy efficiency and associated maintenance works to Council homes.

The Cabinet Member for Climate Action & Environment introduced the report. The report sought approval for the procurement and the award of a new contract(s) to support the continued delivery of the Council’s housing energy efficiency (retrofit) programme, which contributes to achieving the objectives set out in the Council’s Climate Change Strategy 2021– 2026.

The Cabinet Member responded to questions from the Cabinet and Councillors as follows:

i)     It was important to work with residents whose homes were being proposed to be worked on. There was expertise in this area as the Council had already retrofitted around 200 homes.

ii)    The Council monitored works that had been completed to see if there had been improvements to the energy efficiency of the homes.

iii)  There were many ways to measure whether the efficiency had improved, including looking at EPC ratings, as well as looking at the fabric of homes, for example insulating homes was one way to show improvements in efficiency.

iv)  Surveys were carried out pre and post changes to gather the views of residents.

v)    Each property would have a tailored retrofit programme, depending on the needs of the property.

vi)  The new team would also be looking at how the retrofit programme could be rolled out at scale across the city.

vii)As with any tenders those that apply would need to meet the requirements set out in the Council’s procurement rules.

viii)                 The contract had the potential to create newly skilled and well-paid jobs for people to take on in the city.

ix)  Overall, there were a number of benefits to retrofitting, including having better quality homes for residents, whilst also reducing the costs to the Council to keep the homes energy efficient.

x)    Including leaseholders was a new part of the contract, this enabled them to be included when there were works to be done for example on leaseholder flats.

Cabinet resolved (unanimous) to:

Approve the issue of tenders and, following the evaluation of tenders, authorise the Director of Economy and Place to award a contract(s) to a contractor(s) to deliver energy efficiency (retrofit) and associated maintenance works to Council Housing for three years from 2026-29, with an option to extend for one or more periods up to a maximum of two years.