Agenda item

[To receive a report on the Wolverhampton Homes Delivery Plan / Performance]. 

[Report is marked: To Follow]. 

The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes introduced the report on the Wolverhampton Homes Delivery Plan / Performance.  He remarked that the landscape within housing was changing.  There was a wave of new legislation on the horizon, which had been referred to in, The Queen’s speech earlier in the year, some of which was as a consequence of the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017.  The Decent Homes Standard was being reviewed including electrical safety and smoke detection.  In the agenda pack there were six key documents: -

1.     The Wolverhampton Homes Performance Report

2.     The Operational Delivery Plan

3.     Performance Data

4.     Performance Indicator Data

5.     The Wolverhampton Homes Delivery Plan – Capital Delivery Plan

6.     The Capital Programme Outturn     

The Vice-Chair thanked the Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes for the report to the Panel and asked for his thanks to be passed onto the team.  He commented that one of the documents referred to every Wolverhampton Homes resident being required to receive at least one visit over a twelve month period by either a Wolverhampton Homes Officer or a contractor.  He asked how this was being achieved, what the process was for making the visits and the progress in meeting this target to date.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that in subsequent years they had managed to make a visit to every property.  The last 18 months had been difficult because of the Covid pandemic.  He could however assure Members that all Wolverhampton Homes residents classed as vulnerable had been contacted or visited during the pandemic.  A survey was also being sent to Wolverhampton Homes residents with the help of the Council’s Strategy Team.

The Vice-Chair commented on the point of maintenance of estates, that there was a meeting planned with the Council’s estate team on the issue of fly tipping.  He asked if the meeting date been confirmed and if not, if this could be a recommendation for the Director of City Housing and Environment to take up with the estates team.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that there had been a huge increase in the amount of fly tipping incidents, this was in common with other authorities.  There was a dedicated team at Wolverhampton Homes whose sole focus was on dealing with fly tipping.  He described this situation as a sad one, as they were having to divert resources to dealing with fly tipping across the City.  They were working collaboratively with the Council teams to clear up fly tipping as soon as possible. There was now a scheme to clear up walkways which were overgrown or needed improved lighting, this formed part of the collaboration with the Council.  Meetings were always taking place with the Council’s estate teams and had increased during the pandemic. 

The Vice-Chair asked about the locations of fly tipping in the City and if there were any common patterns.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that it was mixed.  Derelict land were the prone sites.  Wolverhampton Homes owned a number of derelict parcels of land, which were often subject to fly tipping.

The Chair asked if cameras could be placed in some of the hotspots to act as a deterrent to fly tipping in the area.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that they had not put up any cameras.  He was aware that the Council had put some up in some areas.  It was not just fly tipping which had increased, there had also been an increase in vermin during the pandemic. 

The Chair asked about Wolverhampton Homes policy towards asbestos.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that Wolverhampton Homes had a compliance register of which asbestos formed one of the big six areas.  The compliance register’s six areas were fire, asbestos, legionnaires, gas, lifts and electricity.  They therefore placed a high priority on managing and maintaining asbestos.  Wolverhampton Homes housing stock was very varied and much of it was built in an era when asbestos was commonly used.  As a Landlord they had a legal duty to manage asbestos. 

The Chair referred to the Grenfell Tower tragedy and asked for confirmation that there was no Grenfell like cladding on any of the residential buildings owned by Wolverhampton Homes.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes confirmed that there was no Grenfell like cladding on any of the Wolverhampton Homes High rise flats.  The Council’s Fire Safety Group had completed considerable work on the matter of fire safety at Wolverhampton Homes.  Due to this there was now a programme of works to put sprinklers in all the Wolverhampton Homes managed residential tower blocks, some blocks already had them installed. 

A Member of the Panel, referred to Appendix 2 of the report – Performance Data, Quarter 4.  He congratulated Wolverhampton Homes staff on some of the excellent figures, considering the Covid-19 pandemic.  It was clear that Wolverhampton Homes staff had operated at a very high standard during a difficult time.  He provided a summary of the work of the Council’s Fire Safety Scrutiny Group which had been setup following the Grenfell Tower tragedy.  The Group had made 26 recommendations on aspects of fire safety.  His view was that Wolverhampton Homes was at the forefront nationally in responding to the need to improve fire safety.  Four other authorities in the West Midlands were following a similar path and he was in discussions with a further two. 

The Panel Member remarked that one of the first major steps the fire group had recommended was to ensure that none of the residential tower blocks had flammable cladding.  The Fire Safety Scrutiny Group had also recommended that sprinklers should be fitted in all high-rise blocks.  Wolverhampton Homes had agreed to the fitting of sprinklers in the high rise blocks they managed.  Another recommendation had been for staff to receive additional training.  Very importantly, hard wired fired detection systems had also been recommended in the residential tower blocks.  In his capacity as the Mayor of Wolverhampton he had recently visited some flats to work on a new evacuation policy and it had worked very well.  He asked when the fire safety improvement plan for all Wolverhampton Homes managed high rise in the City was expected to be concluded, this included automatic detection fire systems and sprinklers.  In addition, he asked when this was completed would Wolverhampton Homes be looking to improve fire safety in low rise residential blocks.  High rise blocks were defined as those above 18 metres in height, which was about six floors.  He expressed the importance of improving the low rise blocks once the high rise had been finished.

The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that he could not give the exact detail of when the improvement works would be completed on the high rise blocks.  The programme had been curtailed during the Covid pandemic because of the restrictions and the impact on obtaining materials. There had been a huge increase in prices of materials citing that 20-30% increase in prices was not uncommon.  They therefore had to be extremely cautious from a commercial perspective on how they managed the programme going forward.  He could however assure Panel Members that the programme would be completed within a given period of time.  He would happily report back to the Scrutiny Panel when they had more details to share.  There was currently no programme planned for low rise managed Wolverhampton residential blocks.  The Infrastructure Programme however, which was taking place for all the tower blocks was going to go through all the flat estate areas to ensure fire safety compartmentalisation. 

The Panel Member commented that the completion of the high rise residential blocks had been planned for 2024.  He acknowledged the reasons for the slippage to the schedule.

A Panel Member thanked the Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes for responding to her reports of fly tipping and acting promptly to resolve the issue.  She asked about whether Wolverhampton Homes notified residents about the amount of fly tipping that had been cleaned up.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that they probably didn’t communicate enough about the clean up works completed because they were so focused on the initial clean up.  He acknowledged that a campaign in the future detailing the costs of clean up would probably be worthwhile.

A Panel Member asked about benchmarking and whether anything in particular from this exercise had come to light during the pandemic.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that they used the national benchmarking club, called Housemark.  The 25 suite of indicators as referred to in the appendix of the report were the one’s which they used to compare with other authorities.  They were comparing very favourably on a number of them.  They had done exceptionally well with residents paying their rent during Covid.  It was true that it had been one of Wolverhampton Homes better years for receipt of rents, which was hard to fathom given the enormity of the pandemic.  There had been no evictions in the year, and it was a credit to all of Wolverhampton Homes customers that they had been able to pay their rent.  A survey would be soon despatched to Wolverhampton Homes residents asking them how they would like to see the services operating into the future.

The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes commented that the one area of major concern to him was empty properties, but this would be improved in the future.  Many organisations during the pandemic stopped receiving repair requests or tenant enquiries and only took emergency calls.  Wolverhampton Homes continued as if they were operating as normal.  He was pleased to say that there was now only a backlog of about 500, having at one point gone up to 3000 during the sequence of Covid-19 lockdowns.

A Member of the Panel asked about the performance data relating to telephone contact metrics.  He highlighted that the data pointed to them being below the standards they had set for themselves.  He thought from a commercial perspective they were quite low standards.  He asked for some more details about the phone system and customers ability to be able to get through to the organisation.  The Chief Executive of Wolverhampton Homes responded that this was an area of concern for him.  In the past they had tried to encourage residents to go digital and report issues online.  A survey they had conducted in August of last year had shown customers preferred contact preference was by telephone.  He had previously hoped that by reducing the call handlers it would encourage people to use online services, but this had not proved to be correct.  During the Covid period they had taken approximately another 11,000 calls than normal but had not increased the staff answering the calls.  If the new survey confirmed that contact by telephone was still the preferred preference, then he assured the Panel that they would increase the call handling staff.