Issue - items at meetings - Presentations from Cllr Rob Jarrett, Cabinet Member for Social Care and Cllr Liz Wakefield, Cabinet member for Housing

29.1    Cllr Rob Jarrett, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, and Cllr Liz Wakefield, Cabinet Member for Housing, addressed the committee, explaining what they had been doing since coming into post and setting out their priorities for the city.

29.2    Cllr Jarrett told members that his priorities included: supporting carers; involving consumers as much as possible (i.e. via ‘personalisation’); building community resilience (with the council as an ‘enabler’ rather than, necessarily, a service provider); reducing reliance on out of area placement; dealing with budget pressures; supporting the city’s 3^rd sector through the current financial crisis; and safeguarding.

29.3    Cllr Jarrett told the committee that he was keen to encourage individuals to be more involved in their communities. This could be facilitated by better publicising opportunities for volunteering, and by making it easier to volunteer.

29.4    In response to a question about the future of council-run day centres, Cllr Jarrett told members that there was bound to be additional pressure on day centres as the growing roll-out of self-directed care gave more individuals control over their care budgets, with significant numbers of people inevitably opting not to spend their money on attending day services. Some amalgamation of services might be required in response to falling numbers, as might a re-design of some services to make them more attractive to service users. Ultimately though, it should be recognised that some services might cease to be financially viable.

29.5    Cllr Wakefield told the committee that her priorities included: improving tenant involvement in housing services; more effective co-working with key partners such as social care, health and children’s services; improving the quality of the city’s housing stock; encouraging housing co-ops; reducing homelessness; improving the quality of private rented accommodation and introducing an ‘ethical letting agency’ for private sector rentals; and building a new, permanent site for Travellers and improving relations between Gypsy and Traveller communities and the rest of the city.

29.6    In response to a question regarding student housing, Cllr Wakefield told members that the council was keen to encourage the construction of additional dedicated student accommodation, with the intention of reducing some of the pressure on family accommodation in the city by reducing student competition for this housing. Whilst landlords might prefer to rent housing suitable for families to students (as the returns are much higher), most would still make a profit from renting to families.

29.7    Cllr Wakefield also told the committee that student landlords needed to accept more responsibility for the wider social costs inherent in providing very high-density student housing (e.g. in terms of noise nuisance, litter and recycling, anti-social behaviour, parking pressures etc). The current very high level of returns for student landlords do not accurately reflect the additional costs to the city of providing student housing: a fairer balance would still allow landlords to make healthy profits, but would share the adverse costs more widely.

29.8    The Chair thanked Cllr Wakefield and Cllr Jarrett for their contributions.