Decision details

The report of the Assistant Director Housing was submitted recommending on how best to provide housing and housing-related services to tenants in the City Council’s older persons’ accommodation in the coming financial year.

It was the intention to continue the current arrangements for this service for a further year and, in the meantime, develop an alternative model for supporting these tenants, which would be reported to Members for approval in due course.

Members discussed how many people could be affected by the proposal to only offer new tenancies in older persons accommodation without the warden service to those age 60 and over.

Scrutiny Committee – Community considered the report at its meeting on 19 January 2016 and its comments were reported.

RESOLVED that:-

(1)     no major changes to be made to the provision of the warden service in 2016/17.  The HRA will continue to fund both the warden service and the emergency alarm system as it has been doing this year. The cost will not exceed £131,000 which includes £51,000 for supporting the emergency alarms. These arrangements will apply to existing tenants only;

(2)     new tenancies will only be offered to people over 60 years old who will not receive the warden service;

(3)     new tenants will have the use of a dispersed emergency alarm (paid for by themselves and provided through Home Call). Any hard-wired alarm will be removed prior to their moving in;

(4)     the contract for the maintenance of the current hard-wired system will be extended from April 2016 to March 2017. This will cost no more than £20,000 and is necessary to maintain the system; and

(5)     the part-time Housing Community Partnerships Officer will start to explore initiatives for combating loneliness and isolation among older residents, with particular emphasis on social activities in the communal rooms which are currently under-utilised, with a view to moving to an alternative model of service delivery from 1 April 2017, subject to further consideration and approval by Members.