The scrutiny committee received a report setting out the Watford Community Housing Task Group’s recommendations and the response from Watford Community Housing (WCH).  Ben Johnson, Group Director of Operations at the organisation attended the meeting to explain the responses and the progress that had been made.

Service Charges

The scrutiny committee agreed that a further update should be provided on the first recommendation at a future meeting.  Following a question about testing communications with residents, Mr Johnson advised that several avenues were used to review information.  This included the Gateway team, local residents’ associations and the Group Board, which included residents.

In response to a question about compensation, which was referred to in the update for the second recommendation, Mr Johnson confirmed that WCH had a compensation policy that set out the details.

Maintenance

Mr Johnson informed members that he had met the Group Head of Community and Environmental Services to discuss WCH and the council working together to improve local amenities.  A further meeting would be held to discuss specific areas of concern.  It was agreed that a further update would be presented at a future meeting.

The scrutiny committee commented on void properties.  Mr Johnson referred to the recent update and that the Planned Investment Programme was available on the website.  It was noted that the programme did not specify the month the work would be carried out.  Mr Johnson explained that specific dates could only be included for the current year.  Residents would be contacted nearer the time the works were due to start.

Members noted this recommendation referenced voids.  The chair asked whether the voids process was getting quicker.  Mr Johnson responded that there had been an issue with the speed of ensuring void properties were ready to let.  This had been due to resourcing problems.  This had been resolved and the turnaround which had been running at 40 working days was slowly reducing.  The performance target was 19 working days, which the organisation was working towards.  There was some concern from councillors that residents were not being given clear indications of when a void property would be ready for occupation.  Mr Johnson acknowledged that there had been some issues with communications to residents but this had improved since processes had been changed.  He advised that the length of time required for works to get a property to let would depend on the amount of work required at the property.  He informed members that the works were carried out by an in-house team which was managed by the team leader, whilst a planner scheduled the works.  Recently some works had been contracted out to the companies that carried out some of the planned work.  There had been staffing issues but the vacant posts had now been filled.  The scrutiny committee agreed to review this recommendation at a future meeting.

Repairs

The scrutiny committee noted the response to the recommendation about the completion of repairs.  It was agreed to review this recommendation at a future meeting to allow the current review to be completed and changes implemented.

The chair noted the following task group recommendation referred to electronic surveys.  She asked how older residents and those who did not use computers would be able to provide feedback.  It was also asked about those people who did not have English as their first language.  Mr Johnson responded that there would still be an option to complete a paper survey; residents would be able to make that choice.  In response to languages, he explained that WCH was aware of those residents who did not use English as their first language.  Translation facilities were available and ‘Google Translate’ could be used.  However, there were not many tenants this affected.  It was agreed that this recommendation would be updated at a future meeting following the expected implementation by April 2020.

The scrutiny committee agreed the following two task group recommendations were satisfactory.

There was some concern about the response to the final recommendation in this section.  Members felt the organisation should change the ratio of compliments and complaints.  They felt that a 50/50 balance was wrong and there should be a far greater percentage of compliments than complaints.  Mr Johnson said that WCH would prefer 9 out of 10 residents to be satisfied, which was the repairs satisfaction target, 90%.  This was being achieved.  Residents were more likely to put in a complaint than a compliment.  However WCH received some very good compliments and felt the ratio was challenging and appropriate.  The ratio was set by the Board and was unlikely to be changed.  It was suggested that councillors could write to the Chief Executive with their views, which could be presented to the Board.  Members were also reminded that the council appointed a person to WCH’s Board; this year it was Stephen Cavinder, members could approach him about the statistic.  A further suggestion was that the chair could speak to the housing Portfolio Holder.  Members agreed that they wished to get a further update at a future meeting.

Customer Service

Mr Johnson referred the scrutiny committee to the final recommendation.  The new module was currently undergoing testing and it was hoped it would be rolled out to operational staff shortly after the completion of the test.  He confirmed the module was compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation.  The scrutiny committee agreed to review this again at a future meeting.

RESOLVED –

1.      that the outstanding recommendations be presented to Overview and Scrutiny Committee in June 2020.

The scrutiny committee received the updated draft of its work programme, incorporating the suggestions from the previous meetings. 

Following a question about the market, the Senior Democratic Services Officer advised that a recent report had been presented to Cabinet.  The decision was available on the council’s website.  Members considered this subject for inclusion in the scrutiny committee’s work programme for 27 February 2020.

RESOLVED –

that the work programme be updated as discussed during the meeting.

The requirement for a partner was identified as part of the Watford 2020 programme and the appointment will be following a competitive procurement process.

To award the contract for the council’s Business Intelligence partner to QlickIT Ltd for an initial term of five years with an option to extend by a further two years.