Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

To approve as a correct record the minutes of the meeting of 4 December 2019 and to authorise the Chairman to sign them.

The minutes of the meeting held on 4 December 2019 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Following the presentation on the Romford Masterplan at the last meeting Members requested that a site visit of the town centre be organised with officers from Regeneration.

Report and appendix attached.

The report and presentation before Members detailed the Corporate Performance Information for quarter 3.

A total of 11 performance indicators were included in the report. Of these, ten have been assigned a RAG status.  Two are currently rated red (off track), three are rated amber and five are rated green(on track).

Members noted that the number of Housing services complaints dealt with in Q3 was below target and that the amount HRA debt was higher than the target. Housing services complaints was however higher than the comparable Q3 of last year.

With regard to the number of housing repairs carried out ion time had improved. The contractors had shown a steady improvement throughout the 2019-20 financial year but still had  yet to reach the target of 95% completions within target time. Regular conversations were taking place with Breyers to assist in meeting the target.

At the end of Q3 2019-20, 86% (18 of 21) of major planning applications were completed within the target 13 week statutory period. There had been a steady improvement in performance in each quarter of 2019-20 to date.

At the end of Q3 2019-20, 82% (285 of 348) of major planning applications were completed within the target time 8 week statutory period. Performance was strong in this area and currently well above the target set of 65%.

At the end of Q3 2019-20, 94% (913 of 975) of “other” planning applications were completed within target. Performance was very strong in this area and currently well above the target 8 week statutory period.

Members felt it would be useful to invite someone from Planning to attend a future meeting to discuss the new Planning Permitted Development regulations.

The Sub-Committee noted the report.

Report attached.

The report before Members provided the Sub-Committee with an update on the provision of responsive repairs and the carrying out of gas safety checks to Council owned and managed housing stock. Following on from the initial report from July 2019

As part of its statutory duties as a landlord the Council was required to undertake responsive repairs to its properties. This included  those associated with gas appliances and heating systems.

Following a procurement exercise, in accordance with the Public Contract legislation, in 2014 a five year contract was awarded to the Breyer Group. This contract was on a Price Per Property basis, and subject to inflation uplift. Repairs deemed “out of scope” were priced and agreed in accordance with a pre priced schedule of rates.

Due to the specialist nature of the gas service, in 2018, two specialist providers were appointed to provide responsive repairs and planned servicing to gas appliances and heating installations. The appointed contractors were K&T Heating for domestic installations and BSW Ltd for communal (commercial) installations. BSW were changed to Stonegrove in August due to performance issues.  The payment structure is for payment on completion of each service or repair request

In regards to responsive repairs the current contract with Breyer expired in March 2019 and approval was obtained to extend the contract for a further two years until March 2021 to enable re-procurement.

There had been major improvements in Breyer’s performance and more robust contract management, an often visited improvement plan and a shift in attitude from both client and contractor side has seen Breyer achieve their main KPI target of 95% of jobs completed on time in November and each month since. This KPI was at 82% at the beginning of the financial year. A swing of 13% in 6 months is testament to the work being done on both sides.

Earlier Performance issues have been addressed through contract supervision meetings and the corrective actions in place are beginning to deliver better quality.

With regards to Gas servicing the long term contractor, K&T had made measured improvements and are currently recording 99.97% for domestic gas servicing and 97.38% for repairs completed in time

Stonegrove were currently 100% compliant and were working well and bringing innovative solutions to our sheltered schemes

It had been agreed that going forward price per property was working well and was the preferred choice.

The Sub-Committee noted the report