Agenda item - Written questions from Councillors.

66.1         The Mayor reminded Council that written questions from Members and the replies from the appropriate Councillor were taken as read by reference to the list included in the addendum which had been circulated prior to the meeting as detailed below:

 

(1)      Councillor: Janio

 

66.2         In 2017, Brighton and Hove City Council removed ‘The Coal Yard adjacent to Sackville Trading Estate’ from the East Sussex, South Downs and Brighton & Hove Waste and Minerals Sites Plan.  Why did the Labour Administration not attempt to remove Hangleton Bottom from the plan, and do the Labour administration have any plans to remove it at the earliest opportunity?

 

Reply from Councillor Mitchell, Chair of the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee

 

66.3         The City council is required to prepare a plan and identify sites to meet the waste management needs of the city. In response to this the Waste and Mineral Sites Plan was prepared with our partners, East Sussex County Council and the South Downs National Park Authority, and adopted in February 2017. It covers the period to 2026.

 

The Sackville Coal Yard site was removed from the Plan during preparation following public consultation which indicated there was little prospect of the site being delivered for waste management use. Evidence was provided to demonstrate that it would not come forward for waste use – which means it would fail the tests for a site allocation.

 

Hangleton Bottom is now the only undeveloped, safeguarded site for waste management use within the administrative area of Brighton & Hove. The retention and inclusion of the site within the Plan was considered important to meet the future waste management needs of the Plan area. A number of other safeguarded sites are located in East Sussex, and as the largest urban area within the Plan area, it is important that Brighton & Hove makes a contribution towards meeting site allocation requirements. During the examination process the allocation of the site was found to be ‘sound’ by the examining Inspector.

         

(2)             Councillor Mac Cafferty

 

66.4         An astonishing 1 in 6 people in the city wait a whole week to see their GP with too many waiting longer; 10 GP surgeries in Brighton and Hove have now closed in the last couple of years. What representation has the Administration made about this intolerable situation to the Clinical Commissioning Group and when are these waiting figures going to decrease?

 

Reply from Councillor Barford – Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board

 

66.5         The Administration and senior officers continue to work closely with the CCG through the Health and Wellbeing Board to ensure a joined up approach to providing effective health and care services to local people, raising any concerns at CCG local and alliance level as well as nationally through bodies such as NHS England, the Local Government Association and government departments.

 

We understand that effort is made by the CCG to support GPs in the city. 

 

We know from the most recent national GP survey that Brighton patients are more likely to be happy with their GP appointment times and satisfied with the type of appointment offered than the national average.  But General Practice services across the city are facing the same pressures that are being reported across England. As a statutory public body, the CCG work within the current policy and framework set out by NHS England and will continue to do so to ensure patients receive on going GP services.

 

The CCG has put extensive measures in place to support GPs in the city, including financial and educational support to help them run their surgeries more effectively and efficiently to free up doctors to provide more care for patients - one surgery saved the equivalent of seven weeks of consultation time per year through a change in repeat prescription process we identified.

 

A key area of CCG plans to improve health and social care across the city is to make sure general practice is more sustainable, more resilient and works efficiently and effectively for many years ahead. This has and will include integrating some services, with other clinical specialists like pharmacists better supporting GPs, and helping GPs work more collaboratively together.  There are also a number of specific schemes such as GP retention packages as well as oversees recruitment that the CCG is implementing as part of its workforce strategy.

 

The CCG states that it is committed to ensuring local people have access to GP appointments. Availability is monitored through national mandated indicators, such as Bi-Annual Extended Access Data Collection, and has successfully rolled out an additional 2600 ‘Improved Access’ appointments a month across the city so that all patients can access evening and weekend appointments.

 

(3)             Councillor Mac Cafferty

 

66.6         The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services described this year’s proposed government funding settlement for adult social care as “both inadequate and temporary.”  How is the Administration lobbying government for adequate long-term funding for adult social care?

 

Reply from Councillor Barford, Chair of the Health & Wellbeing Board

 

66.7         Thank you for the question. Certainly I would agree that this year’s government funding settlement for adult social care has been very challenging in the face of increasing demand and complexity. This administration has contributed to the government’s Green Paper consultation and continues to lobby for change through the Local Government Association and the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership, as well as directly through political means.

 

Our council’s senior officers continue to lobby central government, coordinated through the Local Government Association, with the support of the Association of Directors and Adult Social Services. We await with keen interest the content of the further delayed Green Paper which we hope will introduce realistic and timely proposals for the adequate long term funding of adult social care in Brighton and Hove.

 

(4)             Councillor Mac Cafferty

 

66.8         As ownership figures for electric vehicles continue to rise in the city what work is being done to ensure that the location of charge points does not take valuable pedestrian space?  This could include for e.g.: designs which are integrated into a street lamp column or areattached to it; and installing build-outs where footway widths are not sufficient.

 

Reply from Councillor Mitchell, Chair of the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee

 

66.9         At present when installing any street furniture officers assess the footway and ensure wherever possible that we follow specific national guidance on footway widths. However as much of our road and footway network in the City pre-dates modern design standards and some of our footways fall below the guidance widths, however where this is the case other suitable locations for street furniture and EV infrastructure are found where practicable.

 

Additional measures such as build outs, footway widening and on-carriageway infrastructure protected by bollards, do come at a cost so where possible we do look to use existing footway areas with adequate width.  EV infrastructure is installed to the front of the footways to avoid trip hazards associated with cables, and care is taken on their proximity to nearby street furniture to ensure that chargers do not affect wheelchair / pram access.

 

Our current rollout of EV chargers will be installed within lamp columns to further reduce obstruction and street clutter.     

 

(5)             Councillor Mac Cafferty

 

66.10      In a Yougov ClientEarth poll* from August 2018, two thirds are in favour of breaking up the Big Six’s share of the energy market to favour smaller, cleaner, and locally owned energy systems. The poll also indicated that over 60% of U.K. households want to install solar plus storage solutions.  1 April marks the closure of the favourable feed-in tariff scheme to new applicants despite the large growth of sustainable energy achieved under the scheme.  What support is the Administration offering to the many local sustainable energy cooperatives to continue their valuable work?

*https://www.documents.clientearth.org/wp-content/uploads/library/2018-08-20-clientearths-climate-snapshot-coll-en.pdf

 

Reply from Councillor Mitchell, Chair of the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee

 

66.11      The council recognises that the closure of the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme on 1 April 2019 will make the installation of new solar PV more financially challenging and are working to address the challenges this brings to the city.

 

We are a partner in the EU-funded Solarise project, which aims to understand how best Brighton & Hove and surrounding areas can continue to deploy solar technology without subsidy, including on our social housing assets, as we seek to deliver the benefits of solar technologies to the most vulnerable in the city.

 

Community Energy Groups are one way of ensuring locally-owned assets contribute to the city’s energy supply. Since July, BHCC has been working with community groups and other organisations to increase the number of schools within the city that benefit from solar power. So far, ten schools have agreed to use the framework to install solar PV on their school, some of which have chosen to use community energy groups. In doing so, the schools will reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint, whilst keeping more money in the local economy.

 

There is much more to the future of energy in city than installing more solar power and the council continues to engage in the energy sector in lots of ways, for example:

 

·           We host energy switching desks at our main office sites, including one by a community energy group earlier this month as part of Big Energy Saving Week

 

·           We have supported Sussex’s first local energy supplier, Your Energy Sussex since March 2018. A successful first year means that this energy supplier is now providing over 3600 domestic customers from across the region with local, renewable energy. All surplus income is reinvested into alleviating fuel poverty locally and in last week’s Which? Survey, our partner organisation delivering customer services, Robin Hood Energy, came 2nd out of 30 for customer satisfaction.

 

·           We are coordinating the development of the Greater Brighton Energy Plan, working with community energy groups, public and private sector organisations from across the region to develop an energy system fit for the future.

 

·           With other local authorities across Sussex, we are also working to develop Retrofitworks. This is a project which has recently received funding to develop a multi-stakeholder co-operative, aimed at delivering high-quality retrofits at a fair price to both the able-to-pay market and the contractor, whilst ensuring that customers are supported throughout the process by trained Retrofit Coordinators.           

 

(6)             Councillor Mac Cafferty

 

66.12      Across the entire council workforce, how many staff in which departments are currently engaged in a redundancy consultation process? 

 

Reply from Councillor Hamilton, Deputy Chair (Finance) of the Policy, Resources & Growth Committee

 

66.13      Across the council there are currently four live consultations at this time.  These relate to:

 

West Pier Hostel (Health & Adults Social Care).

Libraries (Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing).

Regulatory Services (Neighbourhoods, Communities & Housing).

Democratic Services (Strategy, Governance & Law).

 

In total just under 200 staff are being consulted.  It is not possible to be certain, but management expect that the consultations will lead to under 10 staff leaving with voluntary severance agreements, and one staff member moving into the council’s redeployment process.

 

(7)             Councillor Sykes

 

66.14      Libraries: Please can Councillor Daniel provide the current annual value of the Book Fund and how this has changed since 2010  In addition please can Councillor Daniel give the separate annual cost to the Council of the bibliographical services provided by Bertram’s and how this has changed if at all since 2010?

 

Reply from Councillor Daniel, Chair of the Neighbourhoods, Inclusion, Communities & Equalities Committee

 

66.15      The current value of the book fund is £643K. In 2010 the value was £672K and the value has changed in the intervening period in two ways:

 

·           There is an annual increase based on the Retail Price Index (RPI)

·           Savings were made from the book fund in 2016 and 2017 totalling £150K

 

The annual cost of the bibliographic services provided by Bertram’s is currently £65K and this is a 13% reduction from the cost of £75K in 2010.  Despite the overall fall in the value of the book fund of £29K between 2010 and now, the libraries service is procuring more items overall by modernising to offer electronic resources to customers in addition to standard stock:

 

·           In 2010 the libraries service procured 36,220 books, DVDs and CDs plus magazines and some on-line resources;

 

·           In the last financial year the libraries service procured 38,462 books, DVDs and CDs in addition to building an offering of over 16,000 eBooks, eAudiobooks and eMagazines, and a number of on-line resources.

 

The advantage of offering eBooks, eAudiobooks and eMagazines is that they are available in all libraries and from home, and they do not attract any fines as they automatically delete themselves at the due date. Also they never get damaged thus saving costs to the council to replace damaged stock.

 

(8)             Councillor Sykes

 

66.16      Waste and recycling: Please can Councillor Mitchell provide an annual figure (in kilogrammes) for Brighton and Hove per household domestic waste arisings (to the Energy Recovery Facility), domestic recycling (to the Hollingdean Materials Recovery Facility) and domestic garden waste (to Veolia’s composting facility) from 2010 to date?

 

Reply from Councillor Mitchell, Chair of the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee

 

66.17      We are awaiting further clarification from East Sussex County Council on a couple of points regarding the requested data, and so a response to this written question will be sent directly to Cllr Sykes as soon as possible.

 

(9)             Councillor Druitt

 

66.18      Impact of Brexit:

On 21 July 2016 Councillor Deane and I submitted a Motion to Council which was passed on the impact of Brexit. The Motion requested that:

-      the Chief Executive write to the Government’s new EU unit setting out concerns with the local impact of any loss of EU funding in research, higher education, infrastructure and community support, the value of free movement of people to Brighton & Hove's economy, as well as the impact on workers’ rights and the environment in Brighton and Hove if legal obligations and protections under EU law are weakened on leaving the EU;

-      Officer reports be presented to future meetings of the relevant Committees setting out the likely impacts of Brexit, and recommendations on appropriate mitigation measures that could be taken within areas of each committee's portfolio;

-      the Chief Executive ensure Brighton and Hove plays a full part in the national feedback process initiated by the LGA on the fallout of Brexit.

The motion was passed but I haven’t seen officer reports of the kind described above presented to any committees I have been on, and I have never heard of the outcome of any actions taken by the Chief Executive as a result of this Motion.  Can I ask what has been done in response to this motion, which committees have received specific Brexit impact reports and what actions have been taken as a result to prepare the city in the eventuality that Brexit, in one form or other, actually happens?

 

Reply from Councillor Yates, Leader of the Council

 

66.19      I am sorry that no specific response to this motion had previously been forthcoming but will outline for you some of the work the Council has undertaken since the Referendum result on 23 June 2016, including reporting to Committee.

 

In July 2016 a letter was sent to the then Secretary of State for Exiting the EU with reference to your Notice of Motion but no response has been forthcoming.  A copy is attached as an appendix to this response (detailed at the end of the response).

 

Also in July 2016 the Chief Executive commissioned the then Policy Team to produce a report for ELT on potential implications of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.  A ‘Leaving the EU Officer Working Group’ was formed with membership consisting of 20 officers from services across the organisation that were understood to be potentially impacted by Brexit.

 

A high level report on potential impacts was produced for ELT and the Council’s Leadership in January 2017.  Action resulting from this report was for the Policy Team to continue to monitor developments and raise issues for senior officer attention as and when necessary, as official information was limited in detail.

 

Early engagement and discussion had also taken place with partners through Brighton & Hove Connected: City Management Board to better understand their view and potential mitigations against Brexit impacts.

 

During 2017/18 intelligence from across organisation service areas was shared for monitoring purposes by the PPS Team.  However, this intelligence was not vastly different to the initial report in January 2017.

 

Consideration of the potential impacts of Brexit has continued across the organisation in a number of different ways, for example the development of the new Economic Strategy was informed by Brexit and attempts to ready us for a post-Brexit UK.

 

In response to a Notice of Motion at October 2018 Full Council a report went to Policy, Resources & Growth Committee on 6^th December 2018 outlining the potential impacts of Brexit on the council and the city and the Chief Executive’s correspondence with the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government regarding Brexit.   Council agreed to recommendations in the report including the formation of a Member working group to ensure member oversight of the potential risks to the council and city and highlighted that strategic oversight was maintained by ELT with support from an officer working group.

 

Our Brexit monitoring and planning is also continuing through external means such as the Sussex Resilience Forum.  We are also highlighting key issues and working on ways to mitigate certain impacts through the City Management Board, Coast to Capital, Greater Brighton Economic Board, SE7 and the LGA with lobbying opportunities to Government and emergency planning protocols under regular review.

 

 

 

Appendix

 

Letter to Secretary of State referred to in the Leader of the Council’s response to question 9:

 

Rt Hon David Davis MP House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
	Date:
	Our Ref:    MW/GR

 

Dear Mr Davis,

Notice of Motion

 

Please find enclosed a notice of motion entitled “THE IMPACTS OF BREXIT” which was passed at the last meeting of Brighton & Hove City Council on 21 July 2016.

 

I would be most grateful if you could give these matters your serious consideration and respond to me at your earliest convenience.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Geoff Raw

Chief Executive

 

NOTICE OF MOTION 

 

THE IMPACTS OF BREXIT

This council is concerned to ensure the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the city. In furtherance of this the Council will seek to consider (within the limitation of the law):

 

• Maintaining the protections afforded to Council workers that might otherwise be lost following the loss of EU Directives 

 

·         Maintaining the environmental protection standards that are currently in place in Brighton & Hove as a result of our membership of the EU, especially with regard to air and water quality.

 

The Council requests:

 

·         That the Chief Executive to write to the Government’s new EU unit setting out concerns with the local impact of any loss of EU funding in research, higher education, infrastructure and community support, the value of free movement of people to Brighton & Hove's economy, as well as the impact on workers’ rights and the environment in Brighton and Hove if legal obligations and protections under EU law are weakened on leaving the EU

·         That Officer reports be presented to future meetings of the relevant Committees setting out the likely impacts of Brexit, and recommendations on appropriate mitigation measures that could be taken within areas of each committee's portfolio.

 

(10)          Councillor Druitt

 

66.20      Making vacant council buildings available for use as homeless shelters:

 

On the 26th January 2017 Councillor Gibson and I submitted a motion to Council asking that the Policy, Resources & Growth Committee commission and give consideration to an urgent report that would enable the City Council to:

-      Make policy that allows for all vacant City Council buildings to be made freely available for use as temporary homeless shelters, to be run by community charity and voluntary organisations that are able and willing to do so;

-      Publicises the availability of vacant City Council buildings to the voluntary and community sector, and calls for expressions of interest from the community to operate these spaces;

-      Make preparations for this at the earliest possible time, given the onset of winter, and offers clear guidance frameworks and assistance to all interested groups, particularly with navigating any regulatory requirements; and

-      Sets Terms of Reference for use of the spaces, conditions of use and clearly details the arrangements for reclaiming possession of the relevant premises when circumstances require it.

 

We all know about the Brighton Centre Night Shelter that was set up in response to this Motion, and I am very grateful to the Administration and officers for making this happen – it has no doubt made a world of difference to those using it.  However, this Motion called specifically for vacant Council buildings to be made available to the community, that availability of buildings be publicised and that guidance was developed to facilitate the use of Council buildings for this purpose.  Given that this motion was passed can I ask what has been done to make this happen?

 

Reply from Councillor Moonan, Lead Member for Rough Sleeping

 

66.21      Following the notice of motion, we have looked at ways in which buildings can be used by community groups as ad hoc shelters. We know when we set up the winter night shelter in 2017, none of the empty buildings the council owned were suitable, and we ended up using the Brighton Centre, which was not an empty building. Indeed this year, we have procured a building to use for SWEP as none of the buildings the council had empty were suitable.

 

If we are able to identify a building in the future, there are still many issues in relation to this. Firstly, we have few buildings which are empty for either the required amount of time to enable community groups to plan, raise funds and undertake the necessary work and obtain planning permission to use the building as a shelter. However, if a viable building is found in the future we would be happy to provide advice on how to navigate the necessary regulatory requirements.

 

In addition, many of our buildings are in residential areas and we may need relevant committee agreement or would have to undertake resident consultation before we do this. This can be a challenge.

 

Where we have buildings which are awaiting works/demolition we are working to see how we can use them to assist the homeless community. We are currently working on such a building in Portslade, however the legal situation has been complex and this has slowed progress.

 

We are also aware that just providing accommodation is not enough. We know that for service users support and treatment are as important as a building. It may be difficult for community groups to provide accommodation to people with challenging needs without the ability to provide appropriate support and there are often significant cost implications with this. Where councillors or residents have identified a building, we have carefully looked into how it may be used and we will continue to do this.

 

I am pleased however with the work that the administration has done, opening the winter night shelter, the rough sleepers hub and the improved SWEP which has given shelter and support to a significant number of rough sleepers already this winter.

 

(11)          Councillor Druitt

 

66.22      Cycling Strategy:

On 20th July 2017 Councillor Littman and I submitted a Motion to Council to request that a report be brought to Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee outlining options for implementing a specific and ambitious cycling strategy for Brighton and Hove, with information included that would help to:

-      identify what progress has been made against the cycling goals of the Local Transport Plan, to encourage a healthy cycling culture whereby cycling is safe, easy and enjoyable;

-      Explore options for the continued development of better cycling infrastructure such as the creation of a ‘Brighton and Hove Cycle network’ (modelled on the successful London Cycle Network) of joined up and marked routes, connecting sections of ‘stranded’ routes and improving the cycling experience across road junctions;

-      Explore the funding options available (such as grants, Section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy) to support improved cycling infrastructure, more cycle parking and greater use of initiatives like personal travel planning, employee purchase schemes and rider and maintenance training;

-      Facilitate greater engagement with residents and cycling groups in the city to ensure maximum support for a cycling strategy and to encourage the creation of political ‘Cycling Champions’ across all parties.

 

The Motion was passed and I am aware that each political group has now has a Cycling Champion (or two in the case of the Green group). Can I ask whether a report such as the one described above was ever brought to the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee and whether we now have the ambitious strategy that was called for? And further to that, what cycling infrastructure and other measures have been developed as a result?

 

Reply from Councillor Mitchell, Chair of the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee

 

66.23      I and Members of the ET&S Committee will recall the discussion of your Notice of Motion in March last year, and that the decision of the committee was to note it.   Therefore, that decision remains and to fulfil it a report will need to come back to the committee at some point.   This matter was also raised at Full Council in April last year in a public question.  The conclusion of those discussions remain the current situation - which is that officers are now scoping and developing a Local Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Plan (known as an L C WIP) in line with Government advice, within the time and resources currently available to them to do so given their other established commitments and priorities.  This will involve stakeholder engagement as part of the process and enable the council to take further steps towards identifying and prioritising the infrastructure that the city needs to improve its cycling network.  Subject to the availability of an appropriate level of resources to enable that work to reach an appropriate point when a decision will need to be made, I am sure that the ETS Committee members will welcome sight of a report on its agenda. 

 

In the meantime, a number of significant local and strategic projects are either being developed or underway that will deliver better facilities for existing cyclists and encourage others to cycle more often in a safer environment.  One of those schemes is Phase 1, 2 & 3 of Valley Gardens which includes a significant improvement to the north-south National Cycle Network connecting to the seafront.  Others include the expansion of the citywide BikeShare scheme and the Safer Routes to School scheme in the Hangleton area.  We also need to ensure that developers provide good quality infrastructure in their planning applications and I am pleased to see that the recently submitted development proposals for the Toad’s Hole Valley site include ideas for connecting the site with other parts of the cycling network in Hove to provide for, and encourage, a greater number of local cycling journeys into the city and the National Park.

 

These and other schemes will make the option of cycling for shorter distances much more attractive for residents, and potentially enable some of those journeys to switch from the car, providing a bit more capacity on our roads for local trips that need to be made by car or longer distance trips made by people for work or leisure, whilst improving the health of those who choose to do so. 

 

(12)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.24      Please provide a table for each year starting  from 2011 up to 2018 with a row giving the numbers of rough sleepers  assessed  estimates and  another row for the number  found when counts were undertaken ( in March and November in these years). For years in which both a count and estimate were undertaken (2011,2013 and 2014) please provide the % that the count number is of  the estimate for that year and show how much more in % terms estimates have been compared to counts on average for all years in which both a count and estimate have been undertaken?

 

Reply from Councillor Moonan, Lead Member for Rough Sleeping

 

66.25      Official rough sleeping count November 2018

Brighton & Hove City Council moved to a rough sleeper count in 2018 following discussions with the MHCLG about the methodology used by other local authorities. The date for the count was agreed in October 2018 in collaboration with Worthing and East Sussex Councils.

 

The official street count took place in the early hours of the morning on the 21st November 2018.  The whole city was split into 13 patches to be covered. Each patch was allocated an experienced member of outreach staff and at least one volunteer.  This count process was independently verified by Homeless Link (the organisation commissioned by the government to oversee correct practice).  The Brighton Centre night shelter was not open at the time of the count, although the churches night shelter was. Any people supported off the streets due to the weather on the night of the count were added into the final count number.

 

The total number of rough sleepers found sleeping rough on that one night was 64. 

 

The street count undertaken in November 2018 is not directly comparable to the estimate undertaken in 2017 because the methodology used is different.  Both methods are equally valid and were independently verified by Homeless Link who sent a representative to both the count in 2018 and the estimate in 2017.  The numbers of rough sleepers recorded since 2010 have increased very significantly in Brighton and Hove and around the country.  But recent local data demonstrates that the numbers of rough sleepers is now reducing, thanks in part to additional funding which has provided 20 new units of accommodation and a 17 space hub since September 2018.  However, flow onto the streets remains high with 48 new rough sleepers being identified in the month the count took place.  Data from the councils B’think system shows that the street outreach service engaged with 74 individual rough sleepers during the week of the street count.

 

November	Rough sleeper Count verified by Homeless Link
2010	14
2011	36
2012	43
2013	50
2014	41
2015
2016
2017
2018	64

 

 

November	Rough Sleeper Estimate verified by Homeless  Link
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015	78
2016	144
2017	178

 

 

(13)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.26      How many properties have been sold under the Right to Buy between 1^st April 2018 and 22^nd January 2019?

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

 

66.27      Right to buy sales figures are usually recorded quarterly.  At the end of Quarter 3 (31 December) 42 properties had been sold.  In the first few days of Quarter 4 (ie up to 22 January) a further 3 properties have been sold.  Therefore a total of 45 properties have been sold under the Right to Buy between 1^st April 2018 and 22^nd January 2019.

 

(14)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.28      Please provide a table for each year from 2011/12 up till 2017/18 showing the expenditure per property on HRA properties for each of the following areas:

 

-            Responsive repairs,

-            Cyclical maintenance and voids

-            Major (capital) repairs

-            Total expenditure on all repairs maintenance and major repairs

-            Housing management

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

         

66.29      We did not take part in the 2012/13 Housemark benchmarking, so this data is not available.

 

(15)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.30      Please What was the average number of people rough sleepers housed per night in December 2018 and in January up to 22^nd 2019 in:

 

-            Council night shelter (Brighton centre)

-             Rough sleeper hub

-            Churches night shelter

-            Severe Weather Emergency Provision (SWEP) for the nights it was open.

 

 

Reply from Councillor Moonan, Lead Member for Rough Sleeping

 

66.31      The Night shelter has a capacity of 30 and the hub has a capacity of 17.  The spaces in these services are all allocated, however not all individuals who have been offered a space will attend. Every effort is made to encourage people to take up the space they have been offered however if they do not, the space will be reallocated to another person. SWEP’s capacity is unlimited.

 

Excluding the Churches Night Shelter which has a maximum capacity of 15 people:

 

·           The average number of attendees for The hub was 13

·           The average number for the Night Shelter was 19

·           The average number for SWEP for when it was open was 17.

 

The maximum number of attendees across all three services (when SWEP was open) was 56 (09/01)

 

See table below:

 

 

Where data for any date was not available at the time of writing, numbers were estimated based on the lower number of the preceding or following night.

 

(16)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.32      Following the unanimous motion passed on the 14^th of December 2017 (and supported by Housing Committee in January 2018) calling  for business case investigations into the spend to save benefits for the council that can flow from providing short term homeless accommodation in-house and given that:

 

-      such a purchase offers the opportunity to the council to obtain a capital asset and receive the benefit income currently being paid (predominantly) to private landlords,

 

-      also net spending on temporary accommodation continues to increase (draining current council  budgets);

Can we be assured that the long anticipated business case will be provided back to committee before April 2019?

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

 

66.33      It is envisaged that a report will be brought to the June 2019 meeting of H&NH Committee due to the complexity of the business case and therefore officers will require sufficient time to assess the costs, risks and benefits of operating this service in-house.  

 

(17)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.34      The answer to the breakdown of temporary accommodation (Dec 2018 Full council) states that there are 441 households housed in temporary accommodation with seaside homes on 31^st March 2018, since the council nominates to all Seaside’s leased 499 homes, what was the use of the put to the other 58 properties by the council?

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

 

66.35      It is difficult to provide historic data as our IT system will defer to a current snapshot. Currently we have 431 Statutory Homeless households and 49 Children’s Services or Adult Social care households who are accommodated under a Service Level Agreement. We currently have 19 Void properties that are in the process of being made ready to re-let.  We have relatively high turnover as we are moving households on to permanent accommodation.

 

(18)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.36      (As requested previously) For the table provided at Decembers 2018 council meeting providing numbers of special conditions applied to the licence applications for the Lewes road additional HMO licensing scheme where  90% of the conditions were satisfied overall, please can the number (and %) be provided showing how many of each of the special conditions were met enabling the total of 90% to be calculated?

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

 

66.37      The Lewes Road additional licensing scheme covering smaller HMOs in 5 Lewes Road wards only operated for five years and came to an end at midnight on 4 November 2017.

 

Designation of our new city wide additional licensing scheme covering smaller HMOs of two or more storeys occupied by three or more people has been effective since 1 March 2018 and will last for five years.  Since commencement of the current scheme, as of 20 December 2018, we have received 1,771 applications and issued 1,155 draft licenses and 844 full licenses.  We are currently commencing compilation of reports on conditions met, albeit the scheme is less than a year old.   

 

We are no longer able to run reports on the former Lewes Road scheme but can confirm that a total of 1,981 HMO Additional Licences were served between 5 November 2012 to 4 November 2017 in the Lewes Road Scheme.  Of those 1,981 properties, 90% of the conditions were met which means 1,783 properties complied with the conditions.

 

Some of the Frequently applied conditions to 1,981 HMO Additional Licenced Properties were:

 

Structural Fire Works	1,725	87.07%
Fire Alarms	1,832	92.47%
Other fire works	1,669	84.25%
Management Repairs	1,598	80.66%
Loft insulation	1,140	57.54%
Ventilation	1,028	51.89%

 

(19)          Councillor Gibson

 

66.38      Over the city there are 44 recognised tenants, residents and community association covering 57% HRA housing areas (Housing committee 16^th Jan 2019) Please can these numbers of representative associations and the % of HRA properties within the area of benefit be broken down for each of the housing panel areas? (East, West, Central and North).

 

Reply from Councillor Meadows, Chair of the Housing & New Homes Committee

 

66.39      Since the data was gathered for Housing & New Homes Committee on 16 January 2019, it has been updated to account for two associations that are no longer running, reducing the total number of recognised associations to 42, covering 52% of HRA properties.  The breakdown requested is set out in the table below:-

 

Area and number of TRAs	HRA properties (inc Seaside Homes and HRA temp acc)	No. falling in TRA area	% in TRA area (rounded to whole number)
Central  18	3,440	2,388	70%
East         8	2,681	1,692	63%
North       8	3,851	1,808	47%
West        8	4,494	1,637	36%
42 TRAs	14,466	7,525	52%