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Housing and Community Safety Policy and Scrutiny Committee
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19 October 2021 |
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Report of the Corporate Director of Economy and Place |
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Finance and Performance Quarter 1 Monitor 2021/22
Summary
1. This report provides details of the 2021/22 first quarter monitoring position for both finance and performance across Housing & Community Safety. The paper incorporates data to June 2021, which was reported to Executive on 28 August 2021.
Recommendations
2. The Committee is asked to note the financial and performance management position across Housing & Community Safety.
Reason: to ensure expenditure is
kept within the approved budget and performance is effectively
scrutinised
Financial Monitor 1 2021/22
3. The table below provides a more detailed breakdown of the forecasts for services within Housing and Community Safety.
|
Service Area |
Expend Budget £’000’s |
Income Budget £’000 |
Net Budget £’000
|
Projected Variance £’000’s |
|
Building Maintenance |
14,327 |
-14,847 |
-520 |
0 |
|
Housing Options and Homelessness |
5,051 |
-3,508 |
1,543 |
0 |
|
Private Sector Housing |
1,153 |
-957 |
196 |
0 |
|
Community Safety |
792 |
-81 |
711 |
0 |
|
Housing and Com. Safety (Gen Fund) |
21,323 |
19,393 |
1,930 |
0 |
4. The Housing and Community Safety service are forecasting a nil variance at quarter 1 on general fund.
5. Housing Options and Homelessness includes the front line services provided to those in need of housing support, the provision of hostels at Peasholme and Howe Hill as well as homelessness initiatives. It is currently assumed the funding will be fully spent.
6. Given the early stage of the year and the overall Council financial position it is important that these service areas are able to manage costs within budget.
Housing Revenue Account
7. The Housing Revenue Account is forecasting a nil variance. The table below provides a more detailed breakdown along with commentary below.
|
Activity area |
2021/22 Net Budget |
Forecast 2021/22 |
Variance |
|
|
£’000 |
£’000 |
£’000 |
|
Repairs & Maintenance |
7,990 |
7,990 |
0 |
|
General Management |
6,628 |
6,628 |
0 |
|
Special Services |
2,668 |
2,688 |
+20 |
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Other Expenditure |
18,438 |
17,980 |
-458 |
|
Dwelling rents |
-31,731 |
-31,413 |
+318 |
|
Non Dwelling Rents |
-429 |
-429 |
0 |
|
Charges for Services |
-1,329 |
-1,289 |
+40 |
|
Other Income |
-636 |
-556 |
+80 |
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Total |
1,599 |
1,599 |
+0 |
8. The Housing Revenue Account budget for 2021/22 was set as a net surplus of £1,220k. There were carry forwards of £2,819k agreed as part of the outturn report meaning the revised budget stands as a £1,599k deficit. Overall, the account continues to be financially strong and is forecasting a nil variance against this revised budget.
9. There is a forecast shortfall in dwelling rental income of £318k due to the number of void properties and the work required to bring the properties to a lettable standard. The backlog of repairs which built up during covid has combined with an increased number of council house residents moving home. This has created significant pressures within the repairs and voids team. In response an external contractor is being deployed to help reduce the number of void properties to a more sustainable number. Housing Operations & Building Services are working together to improve the turnaround of void properties. This shortfall in rental income also impacts the service charges income, which has a shortfall of £40k. These pressures will be offset by the interest rate on debt being lower than that forecast in the business plan and land for the Housing Delivery Programme has not been appropriated as planned resulting in a lower level of debt.
10. The working balance as at 31 March 2021 was £28.8m. It was agreed in the outturn report that a total of £2.8m of the 2020/21 underspend would be carried forward to 2021/22 to fund capital financing, repairs backlog due to COVID delays and the financial assistance scheme. A further £0.4m was added to the working balance. Taking all these issues into account, the working balance will reduce to £27.2m at 31 March 2022. This compares to the balance forecast within the latest business plan of £26.8m.
11. The working balance has been increasing in order to start repaying the £121.5m debt that the HRA incurred as part of self-financing in 2012. The current business plan assumes that reserves are set aside to enable to the debt to be repaid over the period 2023/24 to 2042/43.
Performance – Service Delivery
12. In spite of the many challenges that the organisation and City has faced over the last year, performance across the wider organisation, not just the Council plan indicators, has continued to remain high and continues to compare favourably when benchmarked against other areas with similar characteristics to York. Whilst Covid and the actions taken to tackle the global pandemic have in places affected performance in the short-term, the general pattern for data and information monitored by the Council is that levels of resident and customer satisfaction, timeliness and responsiveness, as well as various directorate and service based indicators, have remained positive.
13. The Executive for the Council Plan (2019-23) agreed a core set of strategic indicators to help monitor the council priorities and these provide the structure for performance updates in this report. The indicators have been grouped around the eight outcome areas included in the Council Plan. Some indicators are not measured on a quarterly basis and the DoT (Direction of Travel) is calculated on the latest three results whether they are annual or quarterly. It is likely that due to impacts of COVID, a number of the Council Plan indicators will see a significant change both in terms of their numbers and their direction of travel in future reporting periods. The majority of the performance measures within the Council Plan have a lag between the data being available, and the current reporting period and therefore impacts will not be immediately seen, and may occur over several years as new data becomes available.
14. Relevant performance items around the Council plan topics “Creating homes and World-class infrastructure” and “Safe communities and culture for all” are reported below, as historically other topics in the Council plan are reported to the other various scrutiny setups.
New Additional Homes Provided
15. Between April and September 2020 there were 182 net additional homes completed. This represents a lower level of completions than anticipated earlier in the year and can largely be attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on new working practices and building material supply. Of these additional homes:
· 90.1% were completed on housing sites;
· 10.4% were a result of an off-campus privately managed student accommodation block at York Dance Works;
· Changes of use of existing buildings to residential use and conversions to existing residential properties accounted for 13.7% of all completions;
· 22% were on individual sites that saw the construction of five or less dwellings;
· Development sites including Germany Beck, the provision of a new apartment block at Tower Way and the Former Del Monte Site in Skelton all provided notable completions over the year.
Net Housing Consents
16. Between April and September 2020, there were 950 net housing consents. This represents a continuation of significant levels of housing consents that have taken place over the previous three full years. Levels of consents can fluctuate based on the approval of large developments. Of these consents the most significant approved sites included;
- 607 consents on the Former Gas Works, Heworth Green;
- 62 on the Vacant Site, Eboracum Way.
Number of homeless households with dependent children in temporary accommodation
17. The number of homeless households with dependent children in temporary accommodation remains at a lower level to that seen in previous years. The latest available data shows that there were 19 households with dependent children in temporary accommodation at the end of Q3 2020-21 compared to 27 at the end of Q2 2020-21. It should be noted that these figures are snapshot figures.
Average number of days to re-let empty Council properties (excluding temporary accommodation)
18. The average number of days to re-let empty Council properties (excluding temporary accommodation) decreased from 67 days at the end of March 2021 to 54 days at the end of June 2021. The increase in days previously seen during 2020-21 was mainly due to the repairs team being unable to repair vacant properties due to the COVID-19 restrictions. As restrictions have eased, it is hoped this indicator will continue to improve.
Energy efficiency – Average SAP rating for all Council Homes
19. The provisional average SAP rating for all Council homes in 2019-20 is 70.6, which is the same as in 2018-19. At the point of reporting, the Building Services team were in the process of establishing a new method for calculating the SAP figure using a combination of the stock condition data and bulk data from the Landmark EPC register. The figure reported for 2019-20 therefore, was the same as the figure from the stock condition survey carried out in 2019. Data for 2020-21 will be available in November 2021.
Number of new affordable homes delivered in York
20. The number of new affordable homes delivered in York remains high, with 83 delivered during the first six months of 2020-21 (compared to 33 during the same period in 2019-20).
21. The latest quarterly planning application data (Q3 2020-21) shows that:
· Major decisions within 13 weeks – York is at 100% and is ranked first regionally (out of 21) and first (out of 15) against CIPFA statistical neighbours
· Minor decisions within 8 weeks – York is at 91% and is ranked fifth regionally (out of 21) and fifth (out of 15) against CIPFA statistical neighbours
· Other decisions within 8 weeks – York is at 91% and is ranked eigth regionally (out of 21) and sixth (out of 15) against CIPFA statistical neighbours
Superfast broadband availability/Average broadband download speed (Mbs)
22. In 2020-21, 94.13% of properties in York had access to superfast broadband, which compares to 94.91% nationally. The average broadband download speed in York in 2020-21 was 147.1Mb/s, which compares to 56.1 Mb/s in 2019-20. This increase can be attributed to the Council’s continued work with service providers to improve infrastructure. The national benchmark download speed is 68.92 Mb/s in 2020-21. This data is provided by an Ofcom panel of consumers so should be treated as an indication rather than actual figures.
% of Talkabout panel satisfied with their local area as a place to live
23. Results from the Q1 2021-22 Talkabout survey showed that 88% of the panel were satisfied with York as a place to live, an increase from 86% in Q2 2020-21 and consistent with previous years. 84% were satisfied withtheir local area (a decrease from 85% in Q2 2020-21). A slight decline in satisfaction with the local area can be seen over recent years but York continues to perform well against the latest national figures of 76% (Community Life Survey 2019-20) and 80% (Local Government Association Poll Feb 2021).
All Crime per 1000 population
24. Overall crime levels in York have remained stable during 2020-21 with 11.7 crimes per 1,000 population during Q4 2020-21. Figures for the whole of 2020-21 show that there were 52.4 crimes per 1,000 population, compared to 66 in 2019-20. This figure for 2020-21 is the lowest recorded annual number of crimes per 1,000 population since 2015-16. Figures for May 2021 (5.6) indicate that rates are remaining fairly stable into 2021-22.
Number of Incidents of ASB within the city centre (Alcohol Restriction Zone)
25. Incidents of anti-social behaviour have remained stable during 2020-21 with 321 incidents during Q4 2020-21. Figures for the whole of 2020-21 (1,410) show a reduction compared to 2019-20 (1,689) and is the lowest number of reported incidents since data has been collected. Figures for May 2021 (110) indicate that incidents are remaining stable into 2021-22.
Annexes
26. All performance data (and approximately 1,000 further datasets) within this document is made available in machine-readable format through the Council’s open data platform at www.yorkopendata.org under the “performance scorecards” section.
Consultation
27. Not applicable.
Options
28. Not applicable.
Council Plan
29. The information and issues included in this report demonstrate progress on achieving the priorities set out in the Council Plan.
Implications
30. The implications are:
· Financial are contained throughout the main body of the report.
· Human Resources (HR) There are no HR implications related to the recommendations
· One Planet Council / Equalities Whilst there are no specific implications within this report, services undertaken by the council make due consideration of these implications as a matter of course.
· Legal There are no legal implications related to the recommendations
· Crime and Disorder There are no crime and disorder implications related to the recommendations
· Information Technology (IT) There are no IT implications related to the recommendations
· Property There are no property implications related to the recommendations
· Other There are no other implications related to the recommendations
Risk Management
31. An assessment of risks is completed as part of the annual budget setting exercise. These risks are managed effectively through regular reporting and corrective action being taken where necessary and appropriate.
Contact Details
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Authors: |
Chief Officer Responsible for the report: |
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Patrick Looker Finance Manager |
Neil Ferris Corporate Director of Place |
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Report Approved |
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Date |
8/10/21 |
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Wards Affected: All |
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For further information please contact the authors of the report |
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Glossary of Abbreviations used in the report:
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ASB |
Anti-social behaviour |
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CIPFA |
Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy |
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CPN |
Competitive Procedure with Negotiation |
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CYC |
City of York Council |
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EPC |
Energy Performance Certificate |
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HRA |
Housing Revenue Account |
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ICT |
Information Communication Technology |
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NHS |
National Health Service |
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SAP |
Standard Assessment Procedure |