Agenda item

To update the committee on the progress of the HRA Capital Programme, providing an overview of current and projected spend along with delivery updates on all associated programmes.

The Acting Director of Housing introduced the report on the HRA Capital Programme which had been requested at the last meeting of the Committee.  It was stated that the figures contained within the report mirrored those that had been reported to the recent Finance and Economic Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday of that week. 

The Acting Director of Housing referred Members to the sizable variances shown within Table 12, (the table should read Table 2) of the report and the significant underspend.  He then went through each line of the table.

-       Heating and Ventilation – work was to be delivered through the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and was due to go live imminently and would increase the spend on this item and carried forward until May 2025.

-       Housing System Enhancements – Savings were due to the reduced scope of the project.

-       Kitchen Refurbishments – There had been a significant spend in respect of kitchen refurbishments, the profile had been changed since the report had been compiled and it was felt that the underspend would not be near the £248,000 shown.

-       Bathroom Refurbishments – same as with kitchen refurbishments and the re profiling of the budgets.

-       Passenger Lifts - It was known that eight lifts needed replacing and that there was between an eight and nine month lead in time. Two were in progress at the present time at Riverside and were near completion. The bulk of the underspend would be committed before the year end or would form a further carry forward.

-       Re-roofing – Unfortunately the current roofing contractor had not been willing to extend the current contract for a further year and therefore procurement of a new contractor was currently being undertaken. Emergency roof repairs could still be undertaken as required.

-       Re-wiring – A lot the work was built into the Earlesfield programme with approximately 110 properties as part of the programme and 160 overall. The programme was being extended due to time constraints and the money would be carried forward to the next year.

-       External Wall Finishes – through work with the SHDF bid which was why the underspends seemed great at the present time.  Profile work was being done under the SHDF bid.

The Capital Programme was approximately £18million for the year with a forecast underspend of £3million however, £15million was a huge investment in the housing stock compared to previous years.

The Chairman asked about the date in respect of the Riverside lift and the Technical Services Manager indicated that she would send the information to the Chairman.

ØAction

Riverside lift completion date to be circulated to the Chairman.

A Member asked if it was possible to know when refurbishment work was to be carried out on properties and she specifically highlighted two areas within her ward to which the Technical Services Manager replied that it was difficult to specify, as there was then an expectation that the work would be carried out at a specific time and it was not always possible to fulfil and therefore generated complaints.

The programmes were drawn from the Apex database and the stock condition data and where people had let the surveyors into the house that information was up to date, other information may need to be qualified.  The decency standard was around age and condition and the stock condition survey tended to drive the investment programmes.

Members noted the current position.