5. Value for Money standard

5.1 Value for money

Making better use of public money is one of the council’s priorities and we aim to reduce our costs while also improving our services to you. We have already made significant progress to help bring down our costs, while continuing to improve our performance and services to tenants.

We have put vast sums of money into resourcing the priorities of residents especially around the communal areas of our estates. Some of the ways we have improved value for money include:

Making efficiency savings across all our budgets. We have moved from a day to day repairs contract to a lump sum contract.

Aim to reduce current tenant arrears by nearly 29% in the last 2 years.

Increasing income by reducing the time it takes to repair and re-let empty properties. The new contract with Mears regarding voids requires them to decrease the time they have to do the works from the current ten days down to eight days in year three.

Recharging more tenants who deliberately damage or neglect their properties and improve collection rates on these debts.

Freed up Housing Officers to spend more time out visiting tenants and properties and assisting with the collection of arrears.

Continue to use Housing Response Officers to undertake minor repairs to communal areas.

We operate the leave it clean and clear scheme where tenants can receive £100.00 from the Council if they leave their property clean and clear of rubbish when they move out. This is aimed at reducing our rechargable works orders.

We are currently implementing a re-cycling scheme so that tenants are able to get goods they require for their new home. All electrical goods are PAT tested. This benefits them and reduces the Councils environmental impact.

Residents also told us we should be more flexible with outgoing tenants who often had to throw away good carpets and fittings the new tenant might want. We now carry out moving visits and agree with them what they can leave behind and any changes or repairs that are their responsibility to carry out before moving out. This reduces rechargeable work orders (RWO’s) Resulting in less waste and better value for money.

Costs of managing your home

We reduced the cost of managing homes from £18.58 per property per week in 2007/8 to £16.59 in 2008/9, however costs went up slightly in 2009/10 to £17.80. We aim to reduce our costs so that we compare with the best landlords.

Costs of repairs and improvement

The cost of repairs and maintenance services was £23.22 per week in 2009/10. How ever the new lump sum contract with Mears will deliver savings as well as improving the quality of works and bringing wider community benefits such as apprenticeships. We have undertaken two joint procurements the main repairs contract was jointly procured with Canterbury City Council and the gas contract was let in conjunction with Dover, Canterbury, Shepway and Ashford and has benefited from economies of scale in relation to this.

Arms Length Management Organisation (ALMO)

This proposal to move the management of Council homes in Thanet to an ALMO which would also manage council homes owned by Canterbury, Dover and Shepway is anticipated to provide savings through efficiencies, value for money and improved services to tenants.

Tenant Participation Grant Fund

The fund is for projects and environmental improvements giving residents direct control over spending to meet local priorities. Resident groups can apply annually for the funding, which is allocated democratically by members of the Thanet Tenant and Leaseholder Forum.

Benchmarking

We compare our performance against other landlords through a ‘benchmarking’ organisation for landlords called Housemark and using information published by central government and government agencies. We compare ourselves against similar landlords and the best performing ones to provide us with a robust comparison and the opportunity to explore where improvements can be made. We produce benchmarking reports on tenant satisfaction, our performance and now on costs, as recommended by the Audit Commission.

Rents

In 2009/10 the average rent was £65.72 per week.

We have reduced the time taken to set up rent accounts and process Housing Benefit applications leading to improved satisfaction with the service

In 2009/10 we collected 99.78% of rent due from current tenants.

Leaseholder Charges

Throughout 2009/10 we increased our support to leaseholders to meet their service charges obligations.

We have provided more detailed work descriptions for leaseholders with a better identification of the works.

Decoration works are signed off by leaseholders when completed reducing the future queries.

We undertake pre-purchase interviews for perspective new leaseholders to ensure they are fully aware of maintenance plan and their responsibilities.

We hold open meetings and invite leaseholders to attend where there is large amounts of works to be done at their block.

Making best use of our housing and land assets

We are currently in the process of building five new Council houses on former garage sites. We will continue to review our asset base to ensure that we make best use of them and meet the high demand for more homes.

We have purchased a derelict pub to ensure that a full regeneration scheme can be undertaken.

Stock Condition Survey

In 2009/2010 a stock condition survey was carried out on 40% of our stock. We intend to continue surveying the stock over the next 3 years to update the data we hold on 100% of our stock.

The stock condition survey has enabled us to take a more pro-active approach to maintenance works and to set more accurate budgets required to deliver them. As a result we will be able to provide tenants and leaseholders with a 5 planed maintenance program.

The data collected enables us to set maintenance budgets and help develop the Asset Management and 5 year Maintenance Plan.

88% of tenants were satisfied with the ‘value for money for their rent’ (STATUS survey 2009)

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