Apologies were received from Councillors James Caston and Stephen Williams.

It was RESOLVED: -

That the minutes of the meeting held on the 23 July 2018 be confirmed as a true record

There were no declarations of interests.

None received.

Report to update Members on voids

Councillor Jan Osborne – Cabinet Member for Housing

19.1           The Chair began by informing Members that Item 5,6 and 7 on the Agenda were all related and would therefore be discussed together.  However, Members were to vote on the Items for their respective Council separately.

19.2           Councillor Jan Osborne then introduced report JOS/18/14 which detailed the improved re-let times over the past eight months and that the Voids team had undergone changes to procedures and processes, re-allocation of resources, co- working and culture changes to deliver improve performance. She thanked the team for the work they had undertaken to achieve the improved working practices and voids times. She was confident that Babergh District Council was in a good position to ensure that the housing stock would be ready to re-let to tenants with-in a reasonable time

19.3           Councillor Jill Wilshaw agreed with Councillor Osborne.

19.4           The Tenant Service Corporate Manager provided an update on the average re-let in days on Standard Voids for June 2018, they were as follows:

Babergh Standard Voids 23 days

Mid Suffolk Standard Voids 19 days

This was an average of 21 days across both Councils and that this had been the year-end target for the service.

19.5           Councillor Gasper said it was a comprehensive report, and that especially the risk assessment was good. The improved management changes would benefit the residents and help to reduce the back log of work and still main the housing stock.

19.6           Councillor Hurren asked how many employees were working within the team. He continued to enquire further about the process for purchasing new properties and if considerations were made to the state of the property for the purpose of planning repairs before a property was being purchased.

19.7           In response to the first question, the Corporate Manager – Babergh and Mid Suffolk Building Services (BMBS), informed Members that there were 40 tradesmen, 3 apprentices and 4 team leaders employed in the team, 25 tradesmen were working on the maintenance and 15 were working on Voids project,

19.8           He continued that the acquisition process was currently being reviewed to ensure that the right properties was being purchased and that a mini project in co-operation with the Asset Management team was being undertaken to implement regimented procedures for this process

19.9           Councillor Barrett asked for a clarification of the cost element in the report, in particular how sub-contractors were employed and how these were retained.

19.10       Officers responded that originally there had been 117 Voids properties but that this had now been reduce to 24 properties. All standard Voids had been retained at 100%, whilst at the same time major Voids had been repaired by sub-contractors. Currently there were nine major projects of these, five were being retained in-house and four were being repaired by out-side contractors.  Sub-contractors were only considered if there was a significant amount of work, and this would depend on the type of project and what kind of repairs were required when a property was returned the Housing team.  It was important to understand the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 19.

Report to update Members on voids

Councillor Jill Wilshaw – Cabinet Member for Housing

Please refer to the minute JOS/18/15.

Report based on the scoping exercise conducted 23 July 2018

Councillor Nick Ridley – Babergh Cabinet Member for Planning

Councillor Glen Horn – Mid Suffolk Cabinet Member for Planning

21.1          The Chair began by welcoming and introducing the witnesses attending the Committee, they were:

21.2          Councillor Nick Ridley, Babergh Cabinet Member for Planning, introduced Report JOS/18/16 and pointed Members’ attention to the main points in the report.  He said that there were comments in the report, which the Planning department were to address.

21.3           Councillor Glen Horn, Mid Suffolk Cabinet Member for Planning, agreed with Cllr Ridley and added that the summary of the Charge Pre-planning Application survey had been useful and had resulted in a plan on how to improve the service.  He drew Members’ attention to bullet point 3.2 under the Recommendation, which detailed an action plan for improvement to the Charged Pre-planning Application.

21.4           Phil Isbell, Corporate Manager – Growth and Sustainable Planning, provided a verbal update in relation to bullet point 4.19 and said the figure was 0.2, which did not provide enough evidence for a correlation between fee exception and refusals of planning applications.

21.5           Councillor Field questioned the reduction in enquiries (bullet point 4.4, page 45) and the response was that previously householder enquiries had been serviced by free pre-applications advice. However, these enquiries were now mainly being direct to the self-service portal on the website.  This had been predicted and did not have any influence on the predicted income for the Charged Pre- application income.  There was no evidence that applications were rejected due to applicants using the self-service application.  The exception was for applications for listed buildings, which were free. Some agents did not use the pre-application advice for these, as officers were to conduct a site visit anyway. 

21.6           Members enquired for clarification for bullet point 7.2, page 50 and officers responded that the service team provided a basic sign posting response and advice to enquiries.

21.7           Councillor Lavinia Hadingham ask how the survey had been conducted and how the feedback had been collected and if it was to be considered to have an on-going survey when an application had been completed.  The Corporate Manager said that the survey had been an on-line survey conducted during the whole of May 2018, and that the team had invited everybody, who had used the pre-application service to respond. This had been considered to be the most effective way to capture customer satisfaction at this stage of the Charged Pre-application implementation.

21.8           Consideration was given to introducing a customer satisfaction survey in relation to planning application and pre-application advice. Members were advised that it should be taken into consideration that if applicants were to respond at the end of their applications, some may be influenced by the outcome of the application.

21.9           The Chair invited the Witnesses to make comments.

21.10       Steve Merry, Transport Policy and Development Manager – Growth, Highways and Infrastructure to comment.  He  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

To review the Councils’ Forthcoming Decisions List and identify any items to be brought before the Overview and Scrutiny Committee

It was RESOLVED: -

That the Forthcoming Decisions List be noted

For Members to agree

23.1          Members discussed the Babergh Work Plan and it was generally felt that the start times should be changed for all Babergh Overview and Scrutiny Committees and all Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committees to start at 9.30 am, which was proposed and seconded.

By a unanimous vote

It was RESOLVED: -

1.1               That all future Babergh Overview and Scrutiny Committees and all Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committees to start at 9.30 am.

1.2               That the Babergh Work Plan be noted

For Members to agree

It was RESOLVED: -

That the Mid Suffolk Work Plan be noted

The business of the meeting was concluded at 1.05 pm

……………………………………

                                                                          The Chair (& Date)

To consider whether, pursuant to Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, the public should be excluded from the meeting for the business specified below on the grounds that if the public were present during this item, it is likely that there would be the disclosure to them of exempt information as indicated against the item.

The authors of the reports proposed to be considered in Part II of the Agenda are satisfied that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

PART 2

To follow

It was RESOLVED: -

That the confidential minute of the meeting held on the 23 July be confirmed as a true record