Issue - meetings

The revised 2015/16 and 2016/17 Housing Investment Programme budgets together with the proposed programmes for 2017/18 to 2021/22 were approved by the City Council on 9 February 2016.

The Council Housing Repairs & Maintenance Budgets for 2015/16 and 2016/17 were approved at the Housing Executive meeting on 28 January 2016.

The purpose of this report by the Director of Property & Housing is to inform members of the spending proposed for the next financial year for revenue and capital funded maintenance and improvement programmes together with Housing IT Business Software and to seek approval to incur expenditure in respect of the capital schemes and rolling programmes and to show how the budgets have been allocated on an area office basis.

RECOMMENDED:

(1)  That the area programmes and allocation of finance for the funding of the Revenue Budgets for repairs and maintenance of dwellings be noted.

(2)  That the capital budgets listed in Appendix B and Appendix C commencing in 2016/2017 be approved and the Local Authority Housing Manager be authorised under Financial Rules, Section B14 to proceed with schemes within the sums approved.

(3)  That the Head of Financial Services and Section 151 Officer financial appraisal be approved for the capital programme - global provision.

(1)       The area programmes and allocation of finance for the funding of the Revenue Budgets for repairs and maintenance of dwellings were noted.

(2)       The capital budgets (as listed in Appendix B and Appendix C of the report) commencing in 2016/2017 were approved and the Local Authority Housing Manager was authorised under Financial Rules, Section B14 to proceed with schemes within the sums approved.

(3)       The Head of Financial Services and Section 151 Officer's financial appraisal was approved for the capital programme - global provision.

(4)       The Cabinet Member approved the use of £50,000 from the anticipated 2015/16 Housing Revenue Account revenue underspend to be allocated to provide additional parking on the Housing Area Estates.

Meredydd Hughes presented the report on behalf of the Director of Property & Housing; this set out the annual revenue and capital expenditure on repairs and maintenance for 2016/17.  The details for the area housing offices had also been circulated which set out the anticipated works over the next year.  Appendix C to the report set out the IT works for housing.

Questions were raised by the opposition spokespersons, including Cllr Winnington asking if Kilmiston Close would be back in the programme? Steve Groves, reported that this had slipped within the capital programme to a future year.  The effect of the forthcoming central government budget announcement on the capital spending was as yet unknown.

Councillor Wemyss as Cabinet Member for Housing wished to place on record his thanks to Meredydd Hughes and his team for the production of this comprehensive report.  He had received representation from various sources over the last couple of years regarding parking on some of the estates and had discussed this with the Residents' Consortium. He therefore wished to make some funds available to assist and improve parking where problems had been highlighted and where there was insufficient funding currently available.  Councillor Wemyss therefore added an extra proposal to earmark £50k towards the provision of additional parking by Housing Services.  This was supported by the opposition spokespersons.

DECISIONS:

(1)       The area programmes and allocation of finance for the funding of the Revenue Budgets for repairs and maintenance of dwellings were noted.

(2)       The capital budgets (as listed in Appendix B and Appendix C of the report) commencing in 2016/2017 were approved and the Local Authority Housing Manager was authorised under Financial Rules, Section B14 to proceed with schemes within the sums approved.

(3)       The Head of Financial Services and Section 151 Officer's financial appraisal was approved for the capital programme - global provision.

(4)       The Cabinet Member approved the use of £50,000 from the anticipated 2015/16 Housing Revenue Account revenue underspend to be allocated to provide additional parking on the Housing Area Estates.