Issue - items at meetings - Housing Adaptations and Investment update

Report of the Executive Director Environment, Development & Housing (copy attached).

72.1    The Committee considered a report of the Executive Director Environment, Development & Housing which provided an update on council and private sector housing adaptations investment highlighting capital funding pressures and action taken to mitigate these following Housing Committee approved recommendations on 10 September 2014.

72.2       The report also provided an update on the proactive work being done to better manage the demand for major adaptations in council and private sector homes in the context of the rising demand enabling disabled adults and children to live as independently as possible at home for as a long as possible, and the cost benefit of timely adaptations (Better Outcomes, Lower Costs – ODI/University of Bristol).  The report was presented by the Operations Manager, Housing Adaptations OT Team.

72.3    The Operations Manager, Housing Adaptations, referred to the table in paragraph 3.12 of the report.  All eight of the council’s housing association partners in the city had been contacted with the proposals to seek a contribution from them towards the cost of major adaptations.  The council was on track to spend £1.150m on HRA adaptations in 2014/15. 

72.4    Councillor Wilson asked if there was any possibility of negotiating retrospective payments.  The Operations Manager replied that officers had considered this but thought it would be difficult given that the associations would not have had the opportunity to make any capital provision.  However, in future the associations would be invoiced quarterly in arrears.

72.5    Councillor Meadows agreed with the report.  Several of her residents had been in touch with her to say that it had not been explained to them why they are not receiving their adaptations as expected.  She had to explain the process to them. Councillor Meadows asked if officers explained the step by step process to residents.  The Operations Manager, Adaptations explained the initial assessment was carried out by Adult Social Care.  An Occupational Therapist would visit the client and have a conversation with them.  There was close working with the Homemove Team.  They would contact residents when adaptations were not reasonable or practical to carry out.   Occupational Therapists would happily talk to people if this was needed.   

72.6    The Chair stated that the Occupational Therapists’ job was to talk to tenants about these matters. He asked Councillor Meadows to give the Operations Manager details of specific cases.

72.7    Councillor Mears referred to paragraph 3.10 of the report which reported that the Health & Wellbeing Board had agreed that the allocation for the Disabled Facilities Grant will be monitored by the Health & Wellbeing Board as part of the governance arrangements for all schemes in the Better Care Fund.  Councillor Mears hoped this would include someone with a suitable housing background.  The Operations Manager replied that the Better Care Board did accept the recommendations of the Housing Committee.  How that would happen was not known.  

72.8    Councillor Mears stressed that it was important that whoever monitored the scheme would be a suitable person with a housing background.  This should be embedded in Health and Wellbeing Board monitoring.

72.9    The Interim Head of Housing stated that although the Health and Wellbeing Board monitored the allocation for the Disabled Facilities Grant as part of the governance arrangements for all schemes in the Better Care Fund, there was no reason why the Housing Committee could not monitor it as well.  Reports on this matter could still be submitted to Housing Committee.  

72.10  Councillor Kennedy echoed Councillor Mear’s concerns that the Disabled Facilities Grant would not be monitored or scrutinised by the Committee and that the Housing Committee would not be involved in formulating policy in discharging the budget.  It was helpful to know that the committee could still request reports and updates, however she wanted to highlight her concern about this as a committee member.  She hoped that the committee members who stayed on the committee would pursue this matter with vigour.  Councillor Kennedy stressed that the interests of the Health and Wellbeing Board were not necessarily the interests of the Housing Committee. 

72.11  Councillor Kennedy noted that the team had carried out good work on pooling different budgets.  She welcomed in particular the comments about working with planning colleagues to ensure that new homes  could be tackled at planning level before they were given planning permission and built to ensure they met accessibility and life time standards.  Councillor Kennedy thought it would be helpful if the committee could receive an update at a future meeting from planning colleagues explaining how the council’s commitment in this area could be fulfilled through planning policy and the planning process.

72.12  RESOLVED (1)  That the capital expenditure to date and commitments going forward, the action taken to mitigate pressures this year and next and the role of the Better Care Board in monitoring the allocation to the Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) from 2015/16 is noted.

(2)            That the proactive work being done to better manage demand in both Council and private sector housing and the role of the Housing Adaptations Service in making the best use of the Council’s existing housing stock and opportunities to increase the supply of accessible Council housing is noted.

(3)      That the Housing Committee continue to monitor and scrutinise the Disabled Facilities Grant adaptations.