Agenda item

To receive the report of the Portfolio Holder for Housing, Homelessness Prevention and Customer Services, Councillor Asvachin.

The report was taken as read and Councillor Asvachin and the Strategic Director People and Communities responded to Members questions in the following terms:

Customer Services

• concerns regarding digital exclusion had been taken into account and it was possible that AI could be used to handle simpler enquiries, allowing operators to speak with residents unable to use online services;  

• many residents had created MyExeter accounts to manage garden waste collection;  

• a MyExeter account was not needed to respond to consultations;  

• MyExeter was currently in a one-year pilot and data would be analysed, including to see where people made more than one attempt to create an account; 

• an increase in accounts was expected when Council Tax became available;  
• residents were encouraged to sign up and would be supported to do so when making contact with the council;  

• MyExeter was used to manage garden waste collection, and there was a 97% sign up rate;
• Exeter had a low digital exclusion rate, but it was important to continue to monitor access across all channels;  

• an increase in residents using self-service for routine issues would create capacity for staff to better support those with more complex needs or those choosing not to use digital channels for whatever reason;
• they were not aware of any plans to make other processes compulsory to a MyExeter account;  

Housing

• eligibility for social housing was part of the statutory homeless assessment process;

• each local authority in Devon sets its own allocation policy social housing;
• Devon Home Choice, was the way allocations are administered;  

• the trend in the increase in social housing complaints had been seen nationally and was actually welcomed as it meant residents were engaging with the council which helped the council to continually learn and improve services to tenants;
• part of the increase locally was due to changes that had been made to the complaints process. In the past some issues raised by tenants had not been counted as complaints but they now were;

• the housing benchmark data in the documents shared by the portfolio holder included data from non-local authority social landlords which needed to be borne in mind when comparing outcomes;

• where the benchmarking data shows slightly higher costs for repairs for Exeter this reflects different delivery models, for example, in Exeter these services were contracted outside the organisation so there were no hidden costs in overall budgets that might mask the real costs in providers who undertook repairs “in house”;
• Contract monitoring continued to be a focus to ensure on-going value for money;

• going forward there would be an annual plan published which would show a programme of more regular and varied methods for engaging tenants and gaining satisfaction feedback which was in line with the new Corporate Consultation and Engagement Strategy;
• regarding variation in performance for regular inspections, it was explained that there was a cohort of tenants who refused to give access and rigorous protocols were in place to address this;

• in some cases, voids were for longer periods of time desired and due to some long-term tenants having been reluctant to allow improvement and repairs to their homes. Consequently, when the properties became vacant they required extensive refurbishment which was being addressed by the Tenancy Services team who were required to ensure that all properties were inspected on a regular basis and that refurbishment and updates took place to ensure homes were of the best standard and to continue to look after council assets;
• a representative sample had been targeted for the residents’ survey which was carried out by a partner organisation and was benchmarked nationally;  

• trends emerging from the residents’ survey were being looked at;  

• Heavitree Squilometre was a brilliant idea but would be difficult to start in other areas as it was not easy to get volunteers;  

• if residents had not had a response from the council their Councillor could use the councillor enquiry system to follow up;  

• suggested that councillors could be given real time data on reasonable response rates regarding repairs in the future and that information about service standards could be made clearer. This would allow councillors to reassure council tenants’ that their communication of repairs had been received. It was confirmed that it was not possible for Councillors to have access to individual residents’ accounts for confidentiality and data protection reasons;

• the member enquiry process could be used if residents were contacting councillors regarding a perceived lack of response from the council;
• Many tenants currently preferred to telephone to report repairs but this took longer and often created long waiting times for customers. There was a quick access route via the tenant portal and work was underway to better understand why tenants use of the portal was low with the aim of improving overall response times;

• Stock condition surveys were undertaken and sanctions imposed where tenants have not looked after their property in line with their tenancy agreement; and

• the Head of Service Customer and Communities was undertaking a corporate project around complaint handling which would include automation, labelling and reporting.  

During discussion a councillor stated that a 19 day turn around for repairs was very good especially given that contractors were difficult to source. He also stated that the Council Housing Development Advisory Board had seen data which had showed that compliance levels were excellent.

He also noted that any properties would be passed on in a good condition, but those which were not may have extensive damage.