Interactive webcast player

Housing Management (Cabinet) Sub-Committee
Thursday, 30th July 2026 at 3:00pm

 

Welcome to our Webcast Player.

The webcast should start automatically for you. 

Webcast cameras are not operated by camerapersons; they are automated and linked to speaker microphone units. The aim is to provide viewers with a reasonable visual and audio record of proceedings of meetings held in public.

Note: If your webcast link appears not to be working, please return to the Webcast Home Page and try again, or use the help email address to contact us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point

Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to our housing management cabinet subcommittee.
Councillor Saeed Ahmad, the cabinet member for home buildings and enhancing council homes
and neighbourhoods.
I'm going to request that we adjourn this meeting for another ten minutes before we
start and I hope members and officers are okay with that.
So I'm requesting a ten minute adjournment.
Thank you.
That's fine.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

PUBLIC QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION

Thank you and welcome to a housing management cabinet subcommittee meeting.
Any, I don't believe in any, we're correct.
No apologies.
Karen, welcome.
Thank you.
We've got Councillor Faisal.
OK, so Councillor Faisal is in place of Councillor Kirby Ahmed.
Apologies from David.
David, yeah.
OK, great, good.

1 APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE

OK.

2 DECLARATIONS OF DISCLOSABLE PECUNIARY INTERESTS AND OTHER INTERESTS

Any declarations of interest, members? Anyone?
Anything there? No. Can we...
The minutes, unrestricted minutes.

3 UNRESTRICTED MINUTES

Anything there? 27th of March.
Yes, you are okay with it? Okay, good.
No one from the House and Senate committee knows this,
no one will come and say a few words.

4 a) Chair's Advice of Key Issues or Questions

Okay, I know you are here. Can you hear us?
Yes, I can hear you.
Is there anything you want to say before we formally start the agenda?
Are you okay? Is there anything you want to add?
How's it going? Okay?
In the future, you are talking to your colleagues in the officer corps
and there's any contribution you want to make at the beginning
of our housing subcommittee meeting, cabinet meeting.
You're more than welcome to make those contributions.
Okay? Thank you.
I will do that.
Thank you very much. Thanks for joining us.
Great.
Okay.
The first agenda is 5 .1.

5 a) Housing Management (Cabinet) Sub-Committee Terms of Reference, Quorum, Membership and Dates of Meetings 2026/2027

It's the terms of reference.
Please, yeah.
So, thank you, Chair.
This is a straightforward report and reflects the information as set out in the agenda.
Every year it's good governance practise for members to revisit the terms of reference,
committee composition, quorum arrangement and scheduled meeting dates.
As such, I'm asking members to note these for the housing management subcommittee for
the municipal year.
Thank you.
Meeting dates.
Let me just pull that up.
They're on Appendix 3, Mr Mayor.
Appendix 3, yeah?
Can you say if you could have a look at those?
Yes, so these are all dated for Wednesday.
Wednesday, yeah.
15th and 30th of September, 2nd of December.
Just this week's one, well, from the 15th of July
you got moved to the 30th of July, that was the only one.
The rest remain as a.
West is better than Thursday.
Okay, I'll note that down.
We can always do it at the end of the advisory board
or end of a cabinet.
Okay, all right.
Okay, thanks, Mayor.
You can keep eye on those, I think.
Okay, can we, and the terms of reference
are more or less the same as previous terms?
Yes Mayor.
Okay.
Are we okay with the terms of our offence?
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Okay.

5 b) Housing Management Performance and Compliance Report April 2026

Now...
The report provides an update on the services performance in April 2026 across the key indicators
that we have sort of agreed.
And after 16 measures, 10 showed positive trajectory during this period.
and however, across ten of the measures, performance was below agreed target level.
So the performance across Stage 1 complaints and the calls answered both improved during April,
but were significant below target.
An additional mitigations and action plan have been put in place across...
Stage 1 were below target.
We were below target.
Stage 2 is good, that was 100%.
stage one and we put mitigations in place, we put offices in place now.
So that should come across and we should see a result of that.
So really showing an improvement at the moment we have the full workforce in place, that
should increase.
So what's the mitigation?
One of the answers, yeah.
Sir, can you hear me now?
Is that okay?
Yeah, sorry.
So on stage one we've had a number of vacancies across the housing management complaints team, but also the repairs coordinator team as well
We have recruited to two offices within the repairs team to further recruitment
post to
To be carried out over the next couple of months on the housing housing complaints side
For capacity or they're more vacancy in you to feel no
There's four in on the repair side two at the moment within the housing complaint side, right?
The two housing complaints side are currently in progress. We try to in place in progress in progress
When when will they be appointed?
Well, I mean aiming by September and
To to the repairs post have been have been appointed to but they haven't started yet
They start we're hoping in August
but obviously it depends on their
Periods, etc
So are you saying that we were lacking behind in performance in stage one because of lack of capacity in the services?
That's one of the reasons, Mayor. The other reason is, obviously my colleague had just pointed out, we are seeing greater volumes of complaints coming in over the past, since the beginning of the colony year.
and that's had an impact, especially given that we don't have enough resources.
So that's had an impact on the performance target.
Anything you want to add to that?
Yeah, please, please.
That can't be a reason, more demand, we can't do the work.
If you've got the team there, you told us, service told us what capacity you need,
we're giving you the resources to fill in the capacity,
the reason cannot be more work is coming in.
More work is coming in is good,
but you've got to turn that work around quickly enough.
So in each of the, I mean these statistics here
are for April.
There's been significant improvement since then,
so we're now up to a response time of 60%,
which 61 .1%.
So it's unfortunate that the way these meetings
are staggered that you get sort of quite
old performance information,
but I always tell the team to make sure
that they've got the most up to date.
So in the pack, where we are in red,
Well, for every single indicator, there's at least two sheets of paper that explain
why we're in this situation and what the mitigations are.
So on the complaints responded to on time, it is about capacity.
Seventy percent of complaints are about repairs.
And you're right, you've given extra resources into Stephen's area.
He's got six repairs coordinators, because 70 percent of the complaints are repairs.
But he's only recruited, I think what Abel was saying, he's recruited four of those and
two more to join.
But they are key because what happens is a complaint comes in and then it moves to the
service to respond to that.
So once we get those six repairs coordinators in, we should see that, well we're starting
to see the impact of the four who are already there because performance has already improved.
But also detailed in the report as well is that we are changing the way that complaints
are handled.
So at the moment complaints come into the call centre and we know the call centre receive
about 10 ,000 calls a month. So they receive 10 ,000 calls a month. On average we get about
160, 170 complaints a month. But those calls are coming into a call centre that's getting
10 ,000 calls a month. And what happens is we have 10 days to turn around a complaint.
That's the Ombudsman requirement. We have five days to determine where it's going and
and another five days to answer it.
So what we're doing, and it's detailed in the report,
we are taking the first point of contact for a complaint
out of the contact centre and we're putting it
in our board's team.
So we very quickly can identify, is it a complaint?
And we very quickly can start to get it answered.
The other thing is that sometimes the call centre
recognise a complaint when it's actually a service request.
It could be the first time they're asking about something.
But because they mention a complaint,
they log it as a complaint. So having it in Apple's team will be able to work out
is that a service request for the first time which we can manage or is it
actually a service failure which we failed and therefore it's a complaint. So
I think the biggest change you'll see in the next in the few months coming is
when the triage team actually is moving into Apple's area and out of a very very
busy contact centre. And if you look at Apple's team on stage two complaints
Ables deal with them solely and they're at 100%.
So I think shifting it over to a sort of like
complaints team, first point of contact,
will be hopefully the thing that actually turns the tanker.
I mean, I know Gollum has previous experience of complaints
and I think he believes that getting it out
of that busy contact centre which he manages
will mean customers will get a response much more sooner
and also we'll be able to identify,
Is it a complaint or is it a request?
Who's your director?
Abul?
Me.
Okay, thank you.
In addition to the resources issues, we have had some long -term sickness issues to deal with and manage.
That's further compounded the issue with regards to dealing with volumes.
A lot of respect.
I don't need to know the reasons.
All I care about, what we care about as an executive, we want us to meet the 90 % target.
It's your job and Karen's job and David's job to make sure that the service is delivering
on what we collectively agreed in terms of performance.
If it's not working, you have to take the hit.
I'm sorry.
I don't need excuses.
Can I just mention as well, we talked about complaints yesterday, didn't we, at Cabinet,
when we were talking about the additional resources that Steve was putting in in order
to address the sort of increased volume of complaints.
So we're working with Leah, who's got a lot of questions, and we're working with
that additional resource to see how some of that resource could help us in the
meantime. So we're making that contact with with Leah around the additional
resource but I think the triage shift will be the thing that will really help us.
Thank you.
That's that.
On that paper, the only other thing I want to talk about is the progress we made on the health and safety work streams.
With overdue fire risk actions reduced by 70 actions during April.
And communal electrical actions reduced to 74 total overdue with zero high risk actions.
That was another piece.
And then finally on the performance of dampened mould works was 99 .6 % during April.
and has remained at that level and obviously we want to make sure we're 100 % but we're very close it's going good it's going the right trajectory
and in landing the 10 day response time frames as outlined by Alab's law
That's it for this agenda from me, the analysts
Okay, members, Shafi, Poisel, any comments?
I just wanted to understand, in regards to complaints for stage 1 and 2,
I understand stage 2 you've got 100 % compliance.
Why such a discrepancy between stage 1 and stage 2?
Stage 1, we're so far off the target, whereas with stage 2 we're 100%.
Is it simply an issue with capacity or are there other issues?
And secondly, in regards to percentage of calls answered,
So we're again way off target.
I understand this month's figure is slightly better.
There has been, I'm looking at last month's figure,
a slight increase, but how are we using IT
to improve that service in terms of percentage
of calls answered, and do you have data
for the average kind of waiting time someone has to wait
for the call to be answered?
Thanks.
So I'll bring up Abilene and Golan,
but in terms of stage two, those are complaints
that people have not been satisfied with the stage one, so they then escalated to stage
two. So there's less of them because the escalation rate is probably about 20%. So we're not getting
the volume. But it's detailed work because you have to review everything that's been
done before. But we've got very experienced officers who know how to turn around those
stage twos and there's less of them. And in fact those officers doing the stage twos are
also helping on the stage ones.
So trying to make sure they're not managing too much
for the stage twos to start performance, start to drop.
But it's generally, it's just less numbers
that go to stage two.
On the call centre, I mean,
Grelin will be able to tell you that performance
has significantly improved since this April date.
So I'll let him tell you what that figure is,
and then also he can let you know
about waiting times as well.
Thanks, Karen.
So, Councillor, the performance figure
that's reported in the pack, 76 .4%.
That is a 6 % improvement compared to this time last year,
and we've achieved that with four FTE less,
so we're finding more efficiency within the service.
The most recent performance figure shows it's gone up to 80%,
so we're closing the gap in terms of...
It's 80 % now.
Yes, yes.
Sorry.
So it's closing...
Yes, so it's 80 .4%, so we are closing the gap,
and we're doing this with less FTE than we've had
in the past, so there's more efficiency,
and that's where IT is coming in.
A big part of the challenge that we continue to have is often the failure demands.
So at least 30 % of the contacts that we receive is for people chasing us for repairs that
perhaps were scheduled or the appointments moved because the contractors made those changes
or there's been non -attendance and that obviously diverts the resources from dealing with the
first time enquiries to having to then chase up the contractors.
So we're doing a lot of work with Steve and team in terms of having those contract management
conversations but if you strip out that 30 % failure demand you are very much an
only hitting target but potentially exceeding it. We're also doing a big
piece of work around the online offer not to take away from telephones but
what residents are telling us is a lot more residents would want the
convenience of being able to report things online without necessarily
waiting in a queue so enabling that and the average wait time at the moment is
around five minutes.
So, did you say five minutes?
That's reassuring to know.
Also, so going back on the IT, I know certain organisations, companies use like a waiting
tower callback service.
Is that something that you've looked into or explored?
Yes, so in terms of that, we are currently in the process of trying to trial the callback
service.
It allows people to hold their position in the queue.
We're also trying to look at systems that allow us to better target peak periods.
So the system's able to tell us when there is critical demand, so it allows us to have
more people on the telephones and focus that resource.
In terms of the call centre historically, because it's had a range of different activities
including things like login complaints amongst other things, it's created unfortunately
pockets of specialism.
And what we're trying to do is go to a more generic mainstream JAD that allows anyone
and everyone to jump onto the calls when there's the demand for it particularly during emergencies and peak demand and so and that's an ongoing progress a
Piece of work that we're doing but yet we are using technology and what we're also doing now is doing more outbound SMS messaging
So when there's a block outage, we're telling no residents that we are aware of the issue and that helps to reduce the incoming calls
Thank
Go on Shafi. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Mayor
I'm just looking at the repair satisfaction. We are slightly off the main target.
But at the end of the day, repair satisfaction from residents are so important
because that's where the actual satisfaction of residents come in
because once... I know we have contractual targets with mayors and OCO and all the others,
the work they're doing, but sometimes they come in, they say,
the work's been done, it's been completed, we still, as councillors, we get a call back
saying they came, they said they're going to come on a Wednesday, they haven't come.
And I feel that that puts a tar on the satisfaction to the residents because they're not getting
communicated enough. Say, for example, there's a boiler broken down in one of the flats,
but the part's not going to arrive until Tuesday or Wednesday. So they've said to the residents,
we're going to come in on a Wednesday, but after that there's not been any communication.
So I think that's where the satisfaction of residents need to come forward.
And we as board councillors and as members,
this is basically the brunt of the situation where we are making sure.
So I think that needs to also be addressed.
I realise there's a mitigating circumstances on the KPIs
and how are we as the council KPIs the contractors
to ensure that they are customer satisfaction.
Thank you. Can I just also remind people, last week in full council we had a petition, a lot of good turn -ups, a lot of people turned up about complaining about private service.
A large group of people turned up and in particular, yes, so if you can take a note of that Steve and the team, we are concerned.
and I did ask and I'm asking again now Karen, I do want to know, Seydi if you can make a note.
I did instruct Steve on the day, I want to know when does a contract with MERS come to an end
and all the other contractors and are there any termination clauses in the contract at this stage?
So if I could have that information please and I'll inform you as soon as possible.
Just to say that in terms, I was at the full council so I heard the petition about MERS.
Stephen has until the 19th of August to send a response to the petitioners.
So we will do that automatically and that will be published on the website.
Please have a look at the response before it goes out please.
For all of those petitions that were accepted, responses will go to the petitioners.
Just in terms of the repairs, Steve sent after the full council a note to Steve Halsey
on those questions that you've asked about the MIRS contract and what the timeline is for renewal.
So maybe we could get that from Steve and forward that.
Maybe you could forward that to the Mayor, Steve. That would be great.
If you put it onto Sam and ask him to bring it to my attention or I'll have one, please.
Steve did that the next day after full council.
And then just wanted to mention one other thing just in terms of the escalation rate.
Abul tells me it's 24 % of complaints go on to stage 2.
Can I come back on some of those points, please?
Thank you for raising them.
I've got a paper going to Councillor Ahmed next week at our lead member meeting,
our weekly meeting around the procurement moving forward with the MERS contract.
We've got some proposals.
Part of it is linked to what the council was saying around having visibility of that repairs appointment issue
that causes failure demand and causes dissatisfaction.
So we've got some proposals that we want to do there.
From a quality point of view, satisfaction is quite high here.
Quality wise a question came up before and we do do 100 % inspections of jobs over a thousand pounds.
10 % of 500 to a thousand and then 1 % of under 500.
But we do 100 % damper mould inspections.
And then on the custom satisfaction we do a 10 % survey of through K West of the job.
So we did 10 % of the fit about fifty four thousand
Jobs that gives us the level of people that we come to so what's ten percent?
It's about what of fifty four thousand jobs in numbers of fifty four thousand jobs
It's you know five and a half thousand. Okay, because not sure but I do think
Steve and I've made this point in other forums that ten percent is it's quite a low figure
It's quite a low figure. I don't think it's a true reflection of the complaints that we get in our surgeries.
I think it should be more inspections should be done, given the concerns that was raised by those petitioners,
like ghost visits, work not being done at the first instance, etc.
Etc. I think we should look at and I would like a benchmark in how our other leading authorities doing what percentage today?
Go back and inspect please. Yeah
Absolutely, but we've spent the last nine months or so
Reviewing the service talking to users the bold group, especially other tras. We've been benchmarking with other
councils we think we know where
the sweet spots are and those proposals are going to be in the paper for Cancer Ahmed
next week. So watch this space.
Good. Go on, Karen.
I just wanted to reiterate the point that Stephen was saying that a lot of that failure
demand, there's 10 ,000 calls to the call centre, a lot of them are chases about a repair because
there's a failed appointment or the appointment's been shifted or lack of communication. And
what Steve is trying to do in terms of what he's going to propose to Cancer
Ahmed is a way of fixing that. But you know how so therefore in the future we
have visibility in the call centre of where the appointments are and where
they're moving around because what happens now is we don't and people are
just chasing us so we'll try and fix that in that repairs with procurement.
It's you know so it's something that is very very high on our list of things to
make those improvements and that will just enable the call centre to have less
chases coming in.
Yes, Shafi, can I just ask, so, cause and answer that's fine on time. Time taken to
let property and no target is 55 days, I think we just four or five days, just
I think we were hitting 55 days last couple of months before then.
What's happened? Why there is an up in the left turnaround, please?
There can be a range of factors.
I think the most recent performance now is 47 .9, so we've recovered it.
But usually it can be because there's an extension that's required
because of the complexity of the works.
particularly with buyback units, obviously they tend to have a lot more alterations that
have been done, so it's quite common for us to come across buyback units that were originally
part of the communal heating system but they've been taken off it, they need to be put back
onto the communal heating system, so that often involves more complex plumbing works,
and that's adding into some of the delay, and certainly for some of the units we see
more refusals, which then adds to the overall timeline, because what this is measuring is
from the day we get the key to the day we've managed to get it to someone.
So there are a range of factors involved.
We've made you've made improvements.
We've made improvements now. Just keep it at that, please.
Yeah. OK, then emergency repairs,
which is extremely important.
This is the target is 98 .5 percent.
And we are 94 .3 percent.
This is bread and butter stuff, Karen.
This is emergency, it's emergency, isn't it?
And how can we, an emergency, I would have thought we'd be 100 % delivering on time.
I'm happy to say that.
I mean it's 96 .4 % as of now, so closer.
It's two hour...
Correct.
We're now at 96 .4.
We, it's a two hour, two hour target, time target, so we're getting to 96 % of them within
two hours we will be getting to the others but if they're the others will be
over two hours we still we still would be attending it is a make safe service
and we know we do far too many emergency repairs here and so part of our repairs
policy is around recharging residents where we attend an emergency repair
because we want to reduce the number of emergency repairs because that in effect
puts pressure on the day -to -day repairs.
I mean I understand but emergence emergency Steve and if we attend an emergency and it's
not it's not the tenants fault.
Well one we've got to is we've got to protect our property that's important and preserve
our property so we need to my view is we're going to do our best to meet that hundred
We don't want the property to be damaged.
It's going to be damaged but not permanently damaged and becomes unrepairable.
So we ask who we charge and how we pay for it is a different issue.
The point is it needs to be protected in the first place.
I totally agree with you and we will be doing that when it's a genuine emergency.
We'll have more chance of getting around all of them.
But there are lots of instances where we turn up and we're told it's an emergency
when we get there it's not and that is a waste of resource.
I understand that but for the statistics,
I mean those shouldn't be reflected in the statistics.
Statistics should be genuine, genuine emergencies.
So my request and my, I'm urging the team
that we got to get to the 100 % police, yeah?
Give me a second.
Do you know what we are on now?
It's the same.
It's 95%.
Below target, yeah.
So what's happening and I've not seen a shift in movement over the last previous three or four months.
I don't know what it is now.
So where are we now and what we're doing to improve that?
Apologies.
We are managing our contractors very tightly and we are driving performance and we are penalising.
we are charging, recovering money from contractors around KPIs when they're not performing.
I do think that we need to be changing some of our contracts fundamentally to really improve
that performance.
It's frustrating that it isn't quite where it wants to be despite a lot of hard work,
but we've got plans to be improving that.
Part of your note, if we can just have a sheet just setting out of all the contractors are
and how much we've penalised them over what period and how much money we've, I know it's
not going to be millions but I just want to know what the contract says and how much we've
levied on them in terms of way of penalties.
I just want to know, understand financially what we're doing to exercise deterrence against
them.
Is that okay?
Please, yeah.
Could I just ask Steve to say what the turnaround time is for a non -emergency repair?
So it's two hours for an emergency?
It does vary.
It could be a five day, it could be a 14 day, it could be a 28 day, depends on the repair.
But we do attend within a timeline to secure the property in the first place, yeah?
We do do that, don't we?
For emergencies, yes, that's to make safe, but day to day it could be a five day, 14
day, etc.
If I could just point out that the reason why non -emergency repairs in Target are below
our target is because of mainly mirrors on 87 .7 percent ABCA and OCO also lagging
behind them so I guess it's about what the mayor saying is that contract
management and really penalising them and also sitting with them and giving us
an update on what they have said and how they will approve so I understand that
we sit with the the subcontractors we sit with the directors is what they have
said how they will go ahead and perform but I understand we've got the whole
review of procurement but that's we still have another year ahead and we
can't let that continue for another year.
So that's the bit that we need assurance on.
We've been working very closely with the bold group
and they are meeting me as either next week
or the week after to talk through residents experience
and getting it from, directly from me.
Might also be useful in your role
to meet the contractors as well.
We could set that up.
I
Remember it's okay anything else I'm gonna spent enough time
Sorry, I just wanna clarify. What do you class as an emergency?
Explain please
It's it's something that cannot wait it needs immediate attention it could be a leak
Escape of water, but even with a leak is it containable?
Is it a drip that you could put a bucket underneath them come tomorrow or is it uncontainable?
So there are degrees of
of severity
electrical, you know faults
Life anything that's got a life and limb that you know is affecting the safety of the residents. It would be deemed an emergency
Thank you for that mr. Mayor, can I just point the record how I've been dealing with several
emergency leaks in my ward and our team have been brilliant and they have
responded and have been very helpful especially David and Stephen and
Goulam. Sorry Stephen and David. Great, so praise there. Thank you, thank you. I mean can I just go back
to recommendations. We note the first performance
reports, compliance reports on the agreed actions Karen and for the record
that further to the statistics and further to the petitioning for council,
the petition about the quality of the repairs,
we are asking for a copy of the contractual documents
with all the contractors when it comes to repairs.
We want to understand advising you on termination,
Advise on your early termination and what the options are and also advise on you, from
you, what the penalty clause is.
Please hear, we need that.
We are not happy with, although you are trying your best, but we are at the mercy of external
contractors, we are not happy with the contractors, the quality of and the timeline for some of
the repairs.
We need to be in a better position and so we want to review all the paperwork and take
legal advice on that.
Is that okay?
Thank you.
That's the amendment.
Is that clear?
Thank you.
Can we move on to 5 .3, please?
That's the Housing Management Strategic Risks, quarter 4 review.
I think this report provides a quarterly update on our strategic risks associated with housing
management services and delivery.
Since the risks were last reviewed by the Housing and Management Cabinet Subcommittee in February 2006,
nine of the risks have maintained the same risk score, meaning the actions taken have helped manage the potential impact or likelihood of the risk increasing into a worse category.
One risk increased in score during this period, which is 008, which relates to the geopolitical and economic uncertainty impacting on services.
That we know Mr Mayor isn't in our control, that is an external impact of international affairs.
I think everything else remains how it was reported previously.
A while ago for another forum, but as far as I understood, the executive summary is
very good, it's quite upbeat, but the actual report when it comes to economic certainty,
it doesn't reflect that.
As far as I remember from when I read it previously, that the economic uncertainty has been worse,
it's gone worse.
Can you explain it to me?
The reason why it's gone worse is because of the issues with Iran and Middle East and
all the geopolitical issues around the world.
Although these are not in our control, that risk factor has increased.
And I guess this is going to remain one of those factors that we need to see what's happening around the world
and how it may impact us.
But going forward, actually, and I can't make a comment on that, it could reduce, it could increase even.
What else can we do to insulate, cushion ourselves from those shocks?
I mean shocks will always be, they will be outside external factors, but we're going
to do our best to insulate ourselves, protect ourselves from those kind of shock waves.
Go on Karen.
As well as since the last meeting we've also included a new risk on water because
of the water outages and set out what our mitigations will be to try to make sure that
if a water outage had happened, that the impact would be as best as it could be given the
control measures that we can put in.
I think, what's useful, what I find useful is, I mean there's a lot of detail in here
because for each risk it sets out what the mitigations are.
But I think what's particularly helpful is the heat map, because the heat map appendix
sort of sets out where we are in terms of risk as a service.
We haven't got any risks that are in red.
The highest risk we've got is the geopolitical.
And the reason why, if you look at the heat map, the reason why that is very high is because we're measuring two things.
The likelihood of the event happening and what would be its impact if it did.
Now the likelihood of the geopolitical event happening is almost certain because we're in it.
And the impact is medium because we're able to manage some of the impact by maybe, you know, working with different supply chains.
by making sure that our energy supply is secured like the energy contract that we agreed at cabinet.
So sometimes the risks are high because it's almost certain they're going to happen.
But then the impact may be low or medium.
And what's driving the high score is the likelihood of the event happening rather than the impact.
And I think Mr. Mayor what I understand is this is the highest score we can get

5 c) Housing Management Strategic Risks

given the fact that it shouldn't go into a red category because of what has already happened is already into the worst category we can get into.
So I guess that is the ceiling for us.
Just add a couple of points.
On the geopolitical risk, there are no less than nine control measures in place and they're being reviewed on a regular basis.
At the present moment we meet with the risk team quarterly.
Going forward we will meet with them.
Actually the WVU process will take place every two months.
But I'm meeting with the risk officers on a monthly basis to make sure the control measures are still relevant and appropriate for purpose.
So going forward this will come into cabinet more frequently.
But just to assure you we've been told that the risk score is as high as possible score and it won't go any higher into the red.
But just to reassure you that's the assurance that I've been given from the risk team.
Thank you. Can I just ask about another risk, Alicia?
I'm told this is black and white, my chin. It's kind of hair.
Block Fire Safety, page 88 to 89, so 88 to 90, says it is read significant, although
in the document it says all the mitigations have been completed.
Can you explain that to me please?
It's page 88, Karen.
Page 88, 89, 90 is set out here on the table.
That's 88.
Yeah, it's red, isn't it?
It's red, it's significant.
It's red, but on the other hand we're saying that we've completed all the mitigations.
So what's happening there?
Is it amber?
Okay, but it's marked as significant and it's 10.
So 10 out of what mark?
I thought 10 was the top.
15 is the top.
Okay, you're saying 15 is the top.
They say significant.
Page 1888.
Sometimes with risk, all the mitigations you have in place might not be able to reduce
the risk any further. Because sometimes with fire and building safety it could be external
factors beyond your control. So we know a lot of fires are caused by human behaviour,
for example.
Are you saying, Karen, are we saying that we've done everything humanely possible,
Yeah, operationally possible to reduce the risk to what it is now.
Yeah, I think sometimes we are saying that.
I think sometimes it's... and every month as Apple was saying,
we review these to see whether there's any more risks,
any more mitigations and control measures that we can put in place.
So they're regularly reviewed.
But sometimes events, the likelihood of...
So there is, the likelihood of event happening is sometimes likely.
Okay, okay. I know we can't be 100 % proof, but we got to reduce the risk,
yeah, as far as possible. And what I'm asking, have we done,
are you saying the mitigations that we've put in place,
we've done everything that we need to do to minimise the risk?
as well, Moscie.
Yeah, absolutely.
If I could come in.
Clearly, we have more to do, which
is why we're having our 10 -year building safety
work, which will be $20 million a year across the borough.
So we know we've got our 80 HRBs.
But we mitigate that risk at the moment
by doing block inspections, monthly block inspections.
And I went with a fire risk assessor to Kiln House last week.
And literally every door was opened.
every cupboard was opened, every area was looked in.
So that's our mitigation while we are preparing for major work to that block.
So we do need to do the work, but we're also mitigating the risk by our actions.
Just to say that one of the other risks here is around decency of the stock.
Steve's right, until we get that decency of the stock up to that level,
there is a likelihood that something might happen,
but we're mitigating the risk of the inspections and all of the other work that we can do in that intervening period.
But it will be that huge injection of the money that will de -risk everything.
What I'm talking about is the run of the mill stuff, which is the hazard that can instigate something.
So we want to make sure that kind of stuff is mitigated against as far as possible.
We can't do 100 percent.
But it's one side you need to keep an eye on.
Anyone, anything else?
Anything else? You okay?
Can we agree with the recommendations?
Thank you.
The annual report is a straightforward one.
Any comments on this?
I think straightforward, we can just note it.
Yeah, we can note it Mr. Mehta.
The changes that we requested were embedded.
Yeah, it's a very good report.
Thank you, grateful to you.
It's noted.
The next one is the Your Voice, iAction, Safe Homes, Great Services Programme highlights
and Phase 1 closure report, 5 .5.
This is a very important one.
The report provides an update on the regulatory improvement programme, including a summary
of the progress made during Phase 1 and the proposal for Phase 2.
During Phase 1, 96 improvement initiatives were delivered across 11 different work streams
and it's helping strengthen our governance, increase resident engagement
and it's also putting in place key policies and strategies
and making significant reductions in critical, overdue health and safety actions.
The programme governance and ownership of Phase 2 workstream
have been outlined in Appendix 1.
The programme has been developed through internal consultation,
resident feedback and discussion with regulator of the social housing.
Phase 2 of the programme will ensure the Council's progress towards an improved regulatory grading.
The full list of the Phase 2 deliverables has been tabled in Appendix 2.
In September subcommittee meeting there will be a full progress report provided in all
deliverables and also any key issues arising.
Also the regulators were very happy with the details and engagement that we have had and
also they encouraged with the progress we have made so far.
and we are looking at regrading again early next year.
It's got a detailed appendix, Mr. Mayor, which seems very interesting
with different sort of categories and workstreams.
And I think the more we can enhance that,
the more we can deliver on those sort of workstreams
and the timeline we have, it's real progress.
Great. Karen?
Just to add to that, we're closing down phase one.
and for new members, phase 1 was our response to the regulatory judgement, the C3 grading.

5 e) Your Voice, Our Action: Safe Homes, Great Services Programme Highlight Report

So there were 129 actions in that phase 1. Table 3 .5 shows that we completed 96.
Three were overdue, but one of those will be signed off because you've just agreed the annual report to be published.
13 were on track and four I would say have been completed because it was the online bidding
system that went live a couple of weeks ago.
So that takes out four of the 13.
The rest will go into phase two.
The report gives a lot of detail about phase two.
So phase two is what we're working on at the moment.
It's our roadmap to an improved regulatory judgement.
So moving us on from a C3 to a C2 and a C1.
We've shared the paperwork in here with the regulator to make sure that the key areas that we've identified
as part of that improvement journey are the right ones to move the judgement.
And the key paper is, the key page is 155.
So on 155 it sets out all of the things that we've got to do in order to get to move the regulatory judgement.
and what we've set out on page 155 is a time of March 27 when we've set out a reinspection
review date. So if we complete all of the things to the left of that March review date,
we feel that we can return to the regulator for a review of our regulatory position, because
the things that are to the right of the March date, 27, don't have much impact on a regulatory
judgement. So that page 155 is really key. So we're following up with the regulator at
the end of this month to set out what we think our numbers would be, particularly around
those big six compliance issues, water, gas, electricity, asbestos and lifts and fire safety,
because we need to have our numbers no overdues, we need to have our numbers in
a, you know, at the right level in order to shift the regulatory judgement.
So that date of March 27 is when we will pause and cheque whether our numbers are
in the ballpark that the regulator would expect them to be. Now it isn't just about
the regulator, it's about residents safety because obviously all of the
things that we do around compliance ensures that residents are living in
So we're going to go back to the regulator at the end of July with what numbers we think
we will have achieved in terms of reducing overdue inspections for asbestos or for lifts
and to see whether those are in the right ballpark.
But that's what we're working towards.
Thank you, Karen.
I've got a separate or related matter I'll come onto in a minute.
In one on this report, any comments?
In one?
Nope.
Karen Saeed, I know Jennifer is not here, nor is David.
The bidding system, the changing software, that is causing serious problems.
They have serious issues for the last three or four weeks.
I've had a number of people ringing me, texting me, coming to my surgeries, complaining about the software.
I am sure other councillors have had complaints too.
I was assured when I and the former League member agreed to the changeover to the new system,
the bidding system, housing options, it would be a seamless, smooth transition.
It has been nothing but seamless.
It hasn't been smooth.
and I am very frustrated that officers assured us that we should go along with this,
be a better system and for the residents, and I put a waiting on the waiting list,
it would be a better process.
Well, residents don't feel that's the case.
I tell you why, because a lot of people couldn't, they can't get the effective date on the system,
I don't know that's been resolved, they can't see what position they're in, so under a previous
system they can see what position they're in when they open the bidding system Karen,
then they can bid accordingly.
They can't see that, they can't see, I try to get onto it with people to see what their
effective data is to give them some reasonable advice.
I couldn't do that, Karen.
That's the bare basic the system needs to have.
They have to go and put stuff in the basket, then go and bid.
That's a monotonous laborious process.
Before, it's just to come up on your system,
you can just go and do a bid straight away.
Now you have to go and put it in the basket.
Then it's another step we introduced.
Why have we done that? That's that.
Then the customer service, there were serious complaints.
When people need help, to help them with the changeover,
help them with the teething problems, they're ringing the council.
Sometimes people don't pick the phone up,
or if they pick the phone up, no one is taking responsibility.
They've been pushed from one pillar to another pillar.
People are not taking responsibility.
I was assured that it would be resolved.
I want a note, Karen, on that next Wednesday in MAP.
Before then, I want Jennifer or David to come down and tell us.
I want to reassure that even problems have been dealt with.
I want a presentation and to see how this system works.
But I couldn't see in there, in the new software, I couldn't see an effective date, nor can I see the position people are in.
Or people can't see the position they're in when they bid. It doesn't help.
The whole new process was introduced, make life easy for our residents, it made it even worse.
So if you know anything, can you tell me, Said, Karan? If not, I do want a presentation in MAB.
I'm not gonna wait any longer, Saeed, next Wednesday.
And if I need to write to David, I've written David already.
Okay?
I'll take that book immediately with Jennifer.
What do you know?
Mayor, what I know from this is, okay, number one,
the system that we have to go on to is mainly
because of to secure the data.
Because the previous data was the system that was secure,
so we had to do this move.
My concern, Mr. Mayor, just like yours,
is the user interface.
That's the problem.
I'm happy we're going to a new system.
We need to secure the data, we need to make sure that we're not at risk and our data's not at risk.
Then obviously we face a much huge problem what happened, we don't want to go through that.
User friendliness isn't there, we need to work with the provider, where the provider is, they're meant to be very very good.
If they're very good they need to look at how we can make it more user friendly, we need to have that leeway with them.
And secondly, the workshop that I promised to submit is going ahead, we've got all the plans ready, we're going to put the data in there.
I've done videos with our media team here.
You can have workshops for cows come home,
but the teething problems need to be rectified urgently.
People should be able to do the changeover as quickly as
possible without a seamless process, that was also assured.
This is nothing but seamless.
That's one.
Two, you can't see the position.
When they bid, they can't see the position, how many people have bid for that property, whether they should bid for that property or not?
They were able to do that, they can't do that. You can't see the effective date.
So have that been resolved?
That's been resolved at one capacity, they can only see the bidding position after they place the bid.
That doesn't help, I understand, because you need to see it beforehand, whether you have a competition to bid for this or not.
And obviously then there's an argument, depends on what day you're bidding, you could be position one, you could end up in position 100 by the end of the week.
But we still need to give people that visual before placing the bid whether you want to, if you're 500 you wouldn't even start on that.
So we need to give that, I agree with you, there is a visual that you can see a position after you place the bid.
So how are they rectifying that?
So that's one thing I've asked Jennifer to look into urgently, to see, to go back to the provider.
It needs to be sorted as a priority.
And can they see the effective date?
I'm going to pick that one up as well.
Can you pick it up?
But we do need, Sayid, Karen, we need Jennifer and David with a presentation
and to explain it on a timeline, if it hasn't been resolved achieving problems,
we need to know when it's going to be resolved.
And we need a dedicated number, a dedicated person or persons
at the end of a telephone number to answer the calls.
So customer service needs to be improved.
I think you may need to ask Leah's sites to come down.
If Leah is responsible for customer service.
It's not working at the moment.
So we do need next Wednesday, Saeed, we need a presentation,
we need an assurance, and we need a timeline that the problems have been resolved.
Please, yeah? We can't have these open -ended answers anymore.
Is that okay? If you noted that. Thank you.
Okay, next Wednesday. If you can go and tell, if you can request David and Jennifer and Leah if necessary,
whoever is responsible for customers, just come down next Wednesday, please.
Okay? So can we note the recommendations, can we agree to the recommendations, please, on this one?
Yeah? Okay, thank you.
The last one is the forward plan. It's straightforward.
Anything there? It's straightforward. It's noting, isn't it?
Let's do anything, Karen.
Just to say that there are two policies coming next time.
One on ad hoc disposals and another one on leasehold alterations.
Not leasehold alterations, leasehold repayment options.
Leasehold repayment options.
What's ad hoc disposals?
I talk disposals of where we might have a little bit of land which is of only of benefit
to the household that lives next door which might be a leaseholder which they might be
able to sort of extend into.
But that will, you'll get that at MAB first and then it'll come through.
Thank you.
Thank you to officers for coming down.
and we come to an end, and to members of the public, end of our business, so we conclude the meeting. Thank you.