Agenda item - Chairs Communications

Welcome and Congratulations to Councillor Steve Bell

3.1     The Chair welcomed Councillor Steve Bell as a new member of the Committee, and congratulated him on being awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List.

New Gas Heating Servicing, Maintenance and Installations Partnership Contract    

3.2     The Chair was pleased to inform Members that from the 1st April 2016, Brighton & Hove City Council and K&T Heating had successfully launched the new Gas Heating Servicing, Maintenance and Installations partnership contract.

3.3     The contract would run for 5 years and covered all gas work in the council’s housing stock. The mobilisation team began planning for the transition in late 2015 and after an intense period of preparation, addressing risk and process implementation across the service, the Chair was happy to report that the council had achieved 100% gas compliancy for the first 2 months of the contract across the city.

3.4     Councillor Bell asked what steps would be taken if the contractors found a CO2 battery was not working or had not been hard wired.  He expressed concern that in the winter boilers would be shut off until that problem had been resolved, leaving people without heating or hot water.  The Business and Performance Manager replied that he would answer that question in a written briefing.

          Joint Review of the current Repairs and Maintenance Partnership

3.5     The Chair reported that work was underway to carry out a joint review of the current Repairs and Maintenance Partnership, with support from an independent facilitator to help improve and strengthen the partnership and ensure it is fit for the future.

          Annual Citywide Tenant Conference

3.6     The Chair was pleased to note that this year’s annual citywide tenant conference was held on 11 June with over 40 tenants attending the event, which was designed and co-produced by tenants representatives with Housing staff. The key theme of the day was how to continue to improve resident engagement and broaden involvement across the tenant movement, producing many positive contributions and new ideas to take forward into the tenant involvement review.

          Neighbourhood Initiative – cookery course

3.7     The Chair highlighted a recent highly successful neighbourhood initiative which brought together different generations through a passion for food. Residents at Hazelholt seniors scheme, welcomed students from nearby Portslade Aldridge Community Academy to join them in an eight week cookery course held in Hazelholt’s kitchen.

.

3.8     The cookery course was run by Caroline Henderson of Cooking & Company, a Hove based not-for-profit organisation promoting healthy cooking on a budget, and a celebration lunch with local councillors and the Head teacher was held on the completion of the course.