Agenda and minutes

The Panel Members, Councillors and officers in attendance introduced themselves.

Members will be asked to confirm that their Disclosure of Interest Forms are accurate and up-to-date. Any other disclosures that Members may wish to make during the meeting should be made orally. Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose relevant disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting

There were no disclosures at this meeting.

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday 10 October 2023 as an accurate record.

The Panel resolved to defer the decision on whether to approve the minutes of the meeting held on Tuesday, 10 October 2023 as an accurate record to the next Tenant and Leaseholder Panel meeting on the 6 February 2024.

Councillor Reshekaron entered the meeting at 6.39pm.

To be presented by Orlagh Guanori.

The Chair introduced the item and invited the Corporate Director of Housing to address the Panel. The Corporate Director of Housing explained that purpose of the meeting was for officers to explain the implications of the rent increase, the pressures that the housing revenue account was under and the work that was underway to address the housing needs within the borough.

The Corporate Director of Housing informed the Panel that the Council’s housing department was on a transformation journey following the notice served by the regulator for social housing for breaching the consumer regulation standards. The Corporate Director of Housing explained that the focus over the past 18 months had been to turn these services around, and key part of this strategy was investment into the Councils housing stock.

The Finance Manager conducted a presentation to the Panel, which can be found via the following link: https://civico.net/croydon/meetings

In response to questions from Panel members, officers informed the Panel that:

• The caretaking duties which were referred to in the presentation included litter pickers from Veolia.
• The service charges increase of 7.7% only applied to social housing tenants and not leaseholders or freeholders whose charges were handled separately.
• Officers would have to scale back on some of the services provided to tenants if they did not recommend a 7.7% rent increase.
• Cabinet would decide whether to increase the rent, but officers had presented the proposal to the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel first as they wanted to understand their priorities.
• The rent increase would help to ensure that the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) reserves were adequately built up.
• Officers agreed to give the Tenant and Leaseholder Panel a breakdown on the HRA in future.
• The HRA had around £15 million in reserve, this was a result of the open book exercise which looked at the previous charges to the HRA from the general fund where officers retrospectively took back money from the general fund.
• Leaseholders and freeholders paid the actual cost of the services they received, so to officers were not able to add any additional charges.
• Officers planned to review their service arrangements for the current year, and they were aware that there were tenants who did not claim benefits that they were entitled to.
• Officers had advertised the fact that they had a hardship fund, and the aim was to use the fund more intelligently by using data to target residents in need.
• Currently there were 15 additional repairs raised and 2000 additional calls received per month on average.
• Generally, when a contract was demobilised and a new contract is then mobilised, there was a period of time where tenants tended to hold back on reporting and repairs as they knew that the old contract had come to an end. Officers believed the increase in the number of calls and repairs was due to some residents holding back repairs for a period of time before reporting them from the 1st of August.
• Officers had factored in the increase in the number  ...  view the full minutes text for item 73/23

To discuss any other business at the discretion of the Chair.

Tuesday 6 February 2024 at 6:30pm in Room 1.01, Bernard Weatherill House, 8 Mint Walk, Croydon CR0 1EA.

It was confirmed that the next meeting would be held on 6 February 2024 at 6:30pm in the Council Chamber, Town Hall, Katharine Street, Croydon CR0 1NX.