Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 155)
MONDAY 15 JANUARY 2007
COUNCILLOR BOB
COPLAND, MR
ALAN DAVIES
AND MR
STEVE CLARK
Q140 Chair: That
is fine. It was the none at all that I was asking about.
Councillor Copland: That certainly
is not the case. We would have to supply you with figures.
Emily Thornberry: Do you have a target?
Chair: It would be helpful afterwards
if you would tell us because certainly from your written evidence
the impression was given that you were not given any social housing
out of section 106s, and it would be helpful to have an indication
of what social housing you have out of section 106 and what was
shared ownership and what was rented.
Q141 Mr Hands:
Referring to the very sharp decline in your stock that you mentioned,
can you take us through that?
Mr Davies: The stock has gone
down from twelve and a half thousand properties in 1980, mainly
as a result of the right to buy legislation.
Q142 Mr Hands:
What is it today?
Mr Davies: Just over 6,000, of
which 1,200 are sheltered accommodation units.
Q143 John Cummings:
In 2003 your tenants voted against a stock transfer proposal.
Is this going to have an effect upon your ability to achieve the
decent homes standard by 2010?
Mr Davies: No, it is not. The
tenants voted to stay with the local authority by a fairly significant
majority, despite the Council at that stage fully supporting the
transfer to an arm's length organisation. Changes in the subsidy
system almost immediately after we took the tenants' vote mean
we are now comfortably able to achieve the decent homes standards
by 2010, and hopefully better. We see the decent homes standards
very much as a minimum standard; we want to provide our tenants
with much better accommodation and are working very closely with
them to do that, and are very confident we will achieve that well
before 2010.
Q144 John Cummings:
I think that answers the second question but I will certainly
ask it for the record. Why do such a high proportion of your tenants
wish to keep the Council as their landlord? And do not be shy!
Mr Davies: I think you would need
to ask the tenants that question. Most of our tenants genuinely
felt they were getting a good service from the Council. Our transfer
proposals were very much driven by finance at the time and our
inability at that time to achieve the decent homes standards.
Changes in the subsidy system now mean we can do that and when
we carried out our stock options appraisal immediately after the
vote, I think 90% of the tenants who voted at that stage were
adamant they wanted to stay with the Council.
Q145 Mr Olner:
I know you all well, and just for the record I do represent Nuneaton
in Parliament so I know a little bit about the problems such as
the one Bob described when he was answering a question because
unfortunately, like many other members, the member of Parliament
is also the person responsible for making sure people are housed
correctly, so I do know something about the housing problems.
What I really wanted to ask, however, was what government formulas
in funding are stopping Nuneaton and Bedworth borough council
from building more council house properties to rent themselves?
Is there any way you are being penalised? Is there any money being
taken off you as an authority that you think is grievous and should
not be taken off you?
Mr Davies: The subsidy system
as it works at the moment means that Nuneaton and Bedworth would
probably contribute £3.3 million to the National Exchequer
next year under the present subsidy rules, so that money is taken
from our housing revenue account and redistributed to other authorities.
We have recently concluded a deal with an RSL to provide social
rented properties. We put in 250,000 pounds worth of land to get
eight social rented properties. If you scale that up to £3.3
million, then, in a very simplistic way, you could look at providing
150 social rented properties on that basis. Having said that,
it is much more complex, obviously. There are issues around land,
planning, working with developers—there is a whole range
of issues to take into account—but if that £3.3 million
we contribute to the National Exchequer, stayed in Nuneaton and
Bedworth we believe we could provide a lot more social rented
housing for the people who need it most.
Q146 Mr Olner:
I know Nuneaton, and if this £3.3 million were taken off
Nuneaton and Bedworth and given to other local authorities, who
might those be?
Mr Davies: At the moment I think
the principal gainers are the London local authorities, and I
think there are something like 200 local authorities who still
retain their stock and are part of the subsidy system. Our understanding
at the moment is that the principal gainers are London but I am
sure experts could give you better advice on that than I can.
Q147 Chair: On
the private rented sector in your area, you said that are 700
properties empty for six months or more. Why are there so many
empty properties in the private sector?
Mr Clark: One of the problems
is we do not know enough about them yet. We have just had a stock
condition survey undertaken in the private sector where we have
particularly looked at empty properties as well as those that
are occupied. We are trying to work with landlords as well to
try and make sure that people who have got empty properties bring
them into use, and we are trying to work with them by means of
helping them financially and to place tenants with them. But there
are also quite a lot of empty properties and we are working through
the Council Tax Register and other areas to try to identify who
they belong to. Some are clearly people who need work doing to
them before they could bring them into use; some are parts of
estates that have not been wound up and so on, and it is quite
individual to find out who they are and work with the owners to
bring them into use. We have now restructured our staffing so
we have staff to concentrate on the empty properties in the private
sector and to work with the people who own them and to see what
financial and other assistance we can give them to ensure they
are brought back into use.
Q148 Emily Thornberry:
You do not have any way of penalising these people, do you, and
if you do not, what sort of penalties do you think you should
have?
Mr Clark: The main method with
empty properties is using the empty dwellings management orders
which is a long, drawn-out process.
Q149 Chair: Have
you used any yet?
Mr Clark: It was recently introduced
under the Regulatory Reform Act where the local authority can
supposedly work with people who have long-term empty properties
to try and bring them into use, and the aim of that piece of legislation
is that the owners themselves should bring them back into use
rather than us compulsorily lease them, although compulsory leasing
was one of the suggestions in the 2004 Act. But the empty dwellings
management order is quite lengthy and drawn out, with a lot of
notices being served, people being given time to do something
or another notice being served or maybe going to court, so it
is about the owners themselves filling the accommodation.
Q150 Chair: But
if they do not you can force them to?
Mr Clark: If they do we not can
lease them at the end.
Q151 Mr Hands:
Have you tried to take out any orders yet?
Mr Clark: None yet. I have not
read anywhere that anyone else has either, I have to say. I am
sure someone knows somewhere that they have but I have not read
any press that says anyone has taken any action yet. It is quite
a lengthy, drawn-out process, probably about nine months if you
had to follow the whole process, so I guess no one has actually
got there yet.
Chair: I have a property in my neck of
the woods that has been empty for eight years, so even if it took
nine months that would be worth it to bring it into beneficial
use.
Q152 Emily Thornberry:
On your tenant involvement strategy, how do you support tenants
who want to take on some sort of management on their estate? How
much power do they have, and do you think this is a way forward?
Mr Clark: Yes, I very much think
this is a way forward, and I was interested to hear the previous
discussion. We have a full-time tenant participation officer and
an assistant who does research and supports the groups around
the borough. We have a very active tenants' forum, and a number
of tenant groups around the whole of the borough. They are supported
by those officers specifically related to TP working, helping
them to set up, with funding, training; we go out and meet with
them, we help with their work on the estates; they are very much
involved in the procurement process, particularly with kitchen
and bathroom improvements, appointing the contractors, setting
standards, monitoring our processes for empty properties and so
on. We very much see it as an integral part of the work. In fact,
we feel it would be difficult to offer anything like a decent
housing service without involving our tenants in the way we try
to do. Again, listening to the previous discussion, some tenants
want to be involved quite a lot; some want to be involved very
little. Some people are happy to respond to questionnaires, some
like meetings and so on, so it is quite a breadth of involvement
we offer.
Q153 Chair: From
your experience, firstly, would you agree with the previous witness
that where tenants are involved it increases the quality of the
estate and, secondly, why is it that some tenants want to participate
and others do not?
Mr Davies: I think the answer
is yes, tenants generally do want to be involved in the right
way using the right mechanisms, and not everybody wants to come
to meetings; some might want to be involved through newsletters
or different mechanisms. We have found that where you do involve
tenants you get a better service. For example, we fully involved
tenants in choosing our new partnering contract to support providing
kitchens and bathrooms. In that area tenants wanted to be fully
involved, they wanted to look at the choices of finishes and help
us choose the right contractor, and we were able to achieve not
just a better deal but also greater value for money and efficiency.
So if you involve tenants in the right way using the right mechanisms
on the right subjects then you will get a better service, and
that certainly in our case has been demonstrated by our satisfaction
survey results where we have seen an improvement in the tenant
satisfaction levels in the recent survey, where we even had high
satisfaction levels previously.
Councillor Copland: It is always
going to be the case, some people will be involved and some will
not. It happens at election time, for instance. It is so important,
but how many turn out? It is just human nature, but it certainly
is better for the tenants when they are involved. We are here
to serve them.
Q154 Mr Olner:
If you have a shopping list that you wanted to alert the national
government to give you, particularly on ASBOs on estates and so
on, which would be your top two priorities?
Mr Davies: I am not sure I would
go to that level of detail. To me this issue has to be raised
on the agenda both nationally and locally, and to give you a specific
example we have negotiated a local area agreement in Warwickshire,
as all local authorities have been doing over the last few years;
I am not aware of one mandatory target around housing within that
local area agreement. As we move to multi area agreements I think
that has to be addressed. I think this issue has got to be raised
on the national agenda.
Q155 Chair: When
you say a target on housing, do you mean numbers?
Mr Davies: I think there has to
be a target that people have to have affordable housing targets
in their strategies. The second issue is down to resources. There
have to be more resources put in through the Government Spending
Review if at all possible. In terms of rented social housing that
can be matched by other organisations, but there is a resource
issue there at the end of the day if we are going to get more
socially rented housing in this country.
Chair: Thank you, and we will look forward
to receiving the additional information we asked for.
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