Issue - meetings

F Williamson introduced the report to members. Over the last two years, reporting against empty homes performance figures has been divided into three categories: general needs, supported housing and adapted properties. This performance against the targets has not been where it needs to. A number of reviews have been undertaken both internal and external and Sopra Steria have been commissioned to carry out a review to find out what the issues are with existing processes and understand the demand for certain types of property. The demand for general needs and supported housing is quite different.

Appendix A shows the performance of key to key times since April 2014. There is a period of improved performance through to 2016/17 where the key to key time was as low as 19 days. In 2016, the methodology for collecting data and the way major works were included. Most properties are returned in a reasonable condition so can be re-let quickly but in some instances, especially in properties where perhaps an elderly resident has passed away, the condition can be poor and need extensive work to bring up to the required standard. Other housing providers would take these out of their figures and class them as major works so this has an impact on our figures. Appendix B shows the volumes in the different categories.

Appendix C details the findings of the Sopra Steria. They started the review in December 2019 using a workshop with internal and external stakeholders to map out the voids process which is complex due to the number of different contractors involved. Various stakeholders attended workshops to look at the existing process to understand if there were any opportunities to streamline the process or run elements of the process concurrently. A number of key issues were identified and Sopra Steria were due to present their findings but covid-19 and the lockdown has delayed this.

The Strategic Housing team have undertaken some analysis on the level of demand and found that despite having over 5,000 people considered to have a housing need, around only 1,200 of those have been active on bidding for properties in the last 12 months.

Supported housing schemes have proven more difficult to let and a supplementary piece of work is being undertaken to review the condition, layout and facilities of category 2 schemes. It is evident that dispersed schemes are more popular and it is proposed that a report will be brought to committee in the autumn with the full findings and any recommendations for intervention.

Councillor England referred to the number of people actively bidding on properties and wondered if this was due to people not understanding the process or not believing they have enough points to be successful.

F Williamson said one of the roles of the Independent Reviewing Officer is to understand why some properties have a higher number of bids than others. Some people wait for the new build properties to come online and some people on the housing register are already  ...  view the full minutes text for item 48