Agenda item

Report of the Director of Housing Management and the Director of Property Services.

The DMC is asked to comment and feed back on items of interest in the consolidated report.

Consideration was given to a report of the Director of Housing and the Director of Property Services.

Graeme Beedham, the Head of Tenant Participation and Leaseholder Engagement, introduced the report. He reported on housing contractor performance and clarified that GEM and BTU were the contractors for the Council’s Mechanical & Electrical work.

With regard to the Landlord Services update, it was reported that officers were progressing with the tenant visits programme. About half of all tenants they had visited had said they were in financial hardship.

Mr Beedham informed the meeting that there were changes to the social housing regulatory framework. The regulator would be consulting on consumer standards. As part of the regulatory framework, social housing providers would be asked to conduct annual surveys of their residents and report the results.

The Vice-Chair, Annie Ward, asked about how the survey would be conducted and who would be undertaking it. The Head of Tenant Participation said that it would be conducted by an organisation called Housemark. He also said that Camden might be asking extra questions in the survey, beyond those required by the regulator. Ms Ward said she had experience in market research from her previous employment and would like to be involved in the survey design.

Members raised concerns about maintenance issues. The representative from Hillgrove Estate said that internal lights were not working in one block and so the stairwells were dark after dusk and this caused a trip hazard.

Susan O’Hara, Caretaking Manager, said her service would action this.

ACTION: Susan O’Hara (Principal Caretaking Manager)

Queries were raised about lifts not working or frequently breaking down in Sydney Boyd Court, Taplow, and Webheath.  Danny Waite, Head of Repairs and Operations, said that there had been delays in obtaining spare parts for lifts, particularly during the pandemic. There was a particular problem for “closed protocol” lifts and so the Council was asking contractors to install “open protocol” lifts when they were installing new ones.

The representative from Abbey Road Housing Co-Op asked how long the policy to have open protocol lifts had been in place, and if the lifts in his estate were open or closed protocol. Mr Waite said that approach had been in place for approximately the last two years and that he would check if the Abbey Road lifts were open or closed protocol.

ACTION: Danny Waite (Head of Repairs and Operations) 

The Chair reported that when people phoned up to report a lift that was not functioning, they were sometimes told that this had not been reported before even if it had. Her concern was that lift repairs requests were being noted against flat numbers rather than against the lift itself, so if residents from different flats reported a lift fault it might not be clear to operatives that it was the same lift.

Danny Waite said that lift repairs should be logged against the block, but that there was sometimes a lag in data from the out-of-hours service being available to staff working in the daytime service – and so a daytime operative might not be aware of a fault that had been logged earlier with the out-of-hours service.

Jeremy Woolcock, the representative from 50 Fitzjohn’s TRA, thanked the Chair for arranging a surgery and thanked Danny Waite for his comments there. Mr Woolcock said that he was still awaiting information about where Fitzjohn’s was on the list for planned works, as they were in need of work on their windows and doors. He added no works had been done on the estate for more than 50 years.

ACTION: Susanne Afra (Head of Capital Works)   

A resident said that there was a smell of solvent in the lifts on the Rowley Way side of the Alexandra & Ainsworth estate. She was concerned that people were sniffing solvents there and that it could be a fire hazard. Officers said that solvent abuse should be reported to community safety. They added that caretakers’ duties included cleaning the lifts, but solvent smells were difficult to remove.

A query was raised about whether the list of actions from the walkabout would be publicised for residents to see. Stanton La Foucade, Tenant Participation Co-Ordinator, said that the action list had gone to the TRA officers for their comments and could then be circulated more widely.

                                                                        ACTION: Tenant Participation

RESOLVED –

THAT the report and the comments above be noted.