Agenda item

8.1

The Committee received a report of the Executive Director, Communities, which provided a summary of the Council’s Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan and the principles that underpinned it.  The report was presented by Liam Duggan, HRA Business Plan Team Manager.

8.2

Members made various comments and asked a number of questions, to which responses were provided as follows:-

·                Tenants had been involved in the process by means of a session at the Tenant Conference which had been held in October 2013.  This provided direction as to the chosen path to be taken and how resources were to be focused.

·                Right to Buy sales were presently at around 150 per annum, with approximately 100 new units per annum being built in the next six years.  It was likely that more would be lost under Right to Buy and consideration needed to be given to this issue.  It should be noted that the Council could only retain a small part of the proceeds of Right to Buy sales and officers were well aware of the need to reach a breakeven point.

·                The reduction in the bulky waste collection service was funding increased action on flytipping in the form of increased education and enforcement activity.  This had been trialled successfully in the East of the City and would next start to be rolled out to other parts of the City.

·                The Decent Homes programme would finish within the next two weeks.  The next programme would begin in April 2015. This would be an elemental replacement programme which would focus on properties omitted from the Decent Homes programme.  There were no compensation arrangements in place for tenants who had undertaken their own improvements.

·                In relation to the next investment programme, feedback from the service design workshops had revealed that tackling partial omissions was a lower tenant priority than properties which had had no Decent Homes work.  There were actually 1,700 properties with no work having been done and these would now be prioritised, together with a parallel commitment that anyone moving into a home which was not up the Sheffield standard, would have any necessary works undertaken within 12 months.  Partial omissions would then be next in line.

·                The consultation on HRA usually started in September, with a session at the Tenant Conference in October, followed by a review in November and a January briefing on proposals, prior to these being presented to Cabinet. 

8.3

RESOLVED: That the Committee:-

(a)       thanks Liam Duggan for his contribution to the meeting;

(b)       notes the contents of the report and the responses to questions; and

(c)        requests that an update report be presented to the Committee following the Tenant Conference in October and that tenant representatives be invited to that Committee meeting.