Agenda and minutes

The Vice Chair in the absence of the Chair, chaired the meeting.

Apologies for absence were received from Isabella Luger, Karl Vaughan and Wolfram Westendorf.

Councillor Apak (Cabinet Member for Better Homes) had also given his apologies.

Other Forum members not present included Aldires Bugia, Billy Byatt, Martyn Swain, and Dr Clive Sneddon.

The Forum was informed that as the Microsoft Teams chat had been disabled non-Forum members in virtual attendance who had questions or comments during the meeting could email these to (leaseholdersforum@gmail.com). These questions and comments from non-Forum members would be monitored and responded to during the course of the meeting.

There were none.

To consider and approve the minutes of the previous meeting held on 13^th December 2024.

Consideration was given to the minutes of the meeting of 13th December 2023 and the actions arising from those minutes.

RESOLVED –

THAT the minutes of the meeting held on 13th December 2023 be approved as an accurate record.

To receive a progress report on actions from previous meetings.

Matters Arising from the minutes 13^th December 2023

Head of Leaseholder Services and Housing Income Update

The Communications member confirmed that the slides presented by the Head of Leaseholder Services and link to the Housing Ombudsman information referred to at the last meeting, had been received and published on Camden Leaseholders’ Forum website.

Any other Business- Fire Safety Programme

The Vice Chair referred to an issue raised by a Forum member relating to dissatisfaction with the response to a query received from a Council officer.

He reported that this had been subsequently taken up by the Cabinet Member for Better Homes, which he believed Councillors should do for the sake of maintaining accountability and was an example of how accountability should work. Commenting further he informed the Forum that if a person was not getting a response to a query or dissatisfied with the response from a Council officer one of the remedies was Councillors could raise a member enquiry on behalf of residents, noting that there were local ward Councillors that could represent and raise issues for Leaseholders.

A response relating to the Council’s Complaints Procedure and Compensation had been received which was on pages 47 to 50 of the agenda.

To receive an update from Leaseholder Services:

This is covered under the Leaseholder Services Working Group update.

To receive updates from the following Working-Groups:

·       Major Works Working Group

·       Leaseholder Services Working Group

·       Energy Working Group

·       Newsletter/Communications

·       Repairs Working Group

Consideration was given to the update from the following Working Groups.

Major Works Working Group

The Vice-chair informed the Forum that information relating to the work of the Working Group was on page 29 of the main agenda and page 3 of the Supplementary Agenda.

The issue of how projects moved from the stock condition survey until they were taken up and ultimately ended up on the list of planned works in the Camden Account was addressed.

The Vice- chair commented that it was difficult to find the link to the list of planned works on the Camden account, this had been demonstrated by an informal survey of leaseholders as well as by a brief experiment conducted at the meeting. The difficulty in finding the link was because it was not one of the principal links on the right-hand side of the page rather it could be found under the property details link. To compound matters the link was not controlled by the Major Works department but was the responsibility of Leaseholder Services who were in charge of this page.

A suggested solution was that the heading ‘Property Details’ should be changed to Property Details / Planned Works. There followed a discussion where it was commented that the words property details would not suggest anything to think that was where you could find information on planned works.

Forum members were informed that there was a continuing dialogue about proposals for a compensation scheme when a contractor missed an appointment or cancelled with less than 24 hours’ notice. Leaseholders were reminded that the Forum passed a resolution at the September 2023 Forum meeting that contractors should take the responsibility to turn up for appointments seriously, and it would be reasonable to penalise contractors if they did not turn up or cancelled without sufficient notice. It would be reasonable to compensate a resident who had waited at home for an appointment where the contractor had failed to turn up.

Further to that meeting this was followed up with an exchange of correspondence where ultimately it was noted that the Council had a complaints procedure through which it was possible to ask for compensation. This was on pages 47 to 50 of the main agenda. The tariff of compensation amounts were drawn from Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman guidance.

The Vice Chair was of the view that amounts of compensation in the document did not contemplate the circumstance that was addressed by the Forum resolution of September 2023 i.e. the circumstance where a leaseholder, resident waited at home in vain for an appointment, having to reorganise their daily life and take time off work.

The Vice Chair suggested that an appropriate benchmark was the statutory compensation amount offered by utility companies for missed appointments which was £30.

The Vice Chair asked for feedback from Forum members on what they felt was the most effective format in which to receive information about the costs of a major works project, where they would like  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

To receive an update on the performance and operations of the Repairs Service.

Consideration was given to the Repairs Update on Performance and Operations report.

David Hart presented the report referring to pages 43 to 45 of the main agenda highlighting the engagement the Repairs Working Group had with the Council over the past 3 months.

He informed the meeting that he had recently been made aware that when contacting the Contact Centre to report a repair, if the repair already had a repair number, it would have been logged and allocated to a contractor or the repairs team. If there was any problem the contact centre would ask that maintenance contractor or repairs team was contacted directly. It was only new repairs that could be discussed with the contact centre which would then be allocated.

He commented that there appeared to be a lack of oversight of the maintenance contractors. This was summarised on page 45 of the agenda noting that there were serious issues about management of M&E repairs where over a period of a month there were scores of repairs jobs raised for the same issue which had then been closed down without being fixed, with contractors wanting to turn up in the middle of the night to carry out repairs. He was of the view that this required an investigation and response from the Head of Repairs who was in attendance.

He also referred to page 43 asking for officers Thomas Broad (Consultation and Engagement Manager) and Nermin Hassan (Casework Team Manager) to provide an update on the issues relating to A to D.

In response Thomas Broad provided the following information.

·       In relation to contact centre operational changes a key change was the introduction of the SMS update service for when lifts broke down and stopped working. It had been trialled at Taplow Estate in the autumn and had now been rolled out to about 11 high rise blocks. Whenever a lift broke down, stopped working or was receiving regular maintenance an SMS update was sent to residents attached to that lift. He reported that the trials had gone really well and positive feedback had been received. This was being rolled out to all the other buildings with lifts starting with the tallest buildings. Contact numbers on record were being used, however everybody was welcomed and encouraged to sign up for text alerts.

·       The SMS system would also be extended to district heating as well. Which was likely to be ready by September.

Nermin Hassan (Casework Team Manager) referred to the Case Management table on page 43 of the main agenda highlighting that the figure provided for February 2024 was incorrect, the correct figure was 90%of cases was expected to close within 10 working days explaining that her team worked hard to continue with service improvement.

She reported that a slight dip in performance occurred from August last year with a reduction in the number of cases closed within 10 working days. She said that this was due to some members of staff leaving, issues with recruitment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

The Vice Chair informed members that there were 3 Hampstead member vacancies on the Forum encouraging virtual attendees or friends to stand for the vacancies.

It was noted that Thomas Watkins had resigned his membership. The Forum acknowledged and thanked him for his service.

There was none.