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Housing and Community Safety Policy and Scrutiny Committee
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19 July 2022 |
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Report of the Corporate Director of Place
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Finance and Performance Outturn 2021-22
Summary
1 This report provides details of the 2021-22 outturn position for both finance and performance across Housing & Community Safety which was reported to Executive on 16 June 2022.
Recommendations
2 The Committee is asked to note the financial and performance management position across Housing & Community Safety.
3 Reason: to ensure expenditure is kept within the approved budget and performance is effectively scrutinised.
Financial Outturn 2021-22
4 The table below provides a more detailed breakdown of the outturn for services within Housing and Community Safety.
|
Service Area |
Expend Budget £’000’s |
Income Budget £’000 |
Net Budget £’000
|
Outturn Variance £’000’s |
|
Building Maintenance |
14,327 |
-14,847 |
-520 |
0 |
|
Housing Options and Homelessness |
5,051 |
-3,508 |
1,543 |
+22 |
|
Private Sector Housing |
1,153 |
-957 |
196 |
-53 |
|
Community Safety |
792 |
-81 |
711 |
-2 |
|
Housing and Com. Safety (Gen Fund) |
21,323 |
19,393 |
1,930 |
-33 |
5 The Housing and Community Safety service outturn position at the end of 2021/22 is an underspend of £33k on general fund.
6 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 and Traveller sites. A small variance of £22k overspend was seen in this area, with the majority of this pressure, £17k, relating to repairs at the Traveller Sites.
7 The Private Sector Housing area overachieved on income relating to the recovery of legal costs and admin charges, resulting in an underspend of £53k in this area.
Housing Revenue Account
8 The Housing Revenue Account position is an underspend at year end, a breakdown of which is below.
|
Activity area |
2021/22 Net Budget |
Outturn 2021/22 |
Variance |
|
|
£’000 |
£’000 |
£’000 |
|
Repairs & Maintenance |
7,990 |
7,908 |
-82 |
|
General Management |
7,140 |
6,808 |
-332 |
|
Special Services |
2,668 |
2,758 |
+90 |
|
Other Expenditure |
17,926 |
15,520 |
-2,406 |
|
Dwelling rents |
-31,731 |
-31,540 |
+191 |
|
Non Dwelling Rents |
-429 |
-443 |
-14 |
|
Charges for Services |
-1,329 |
-1,255 |
+74 |
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Other Income |
-636 |
-493 |
+143 |
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Total |
1,599 |
-737 |
-2,336 |
|
Slippage of Revenue Contribution to Capital |
0 |
2,138 |
+2,138 |
|
Revised Outturn Position |
1,599 |
1,401 |
-198 |
9 The HRA position at year end is an underspend of £2,336k, of which £2,138k relates to capital financing that has slipped into 2022/23. The adjusted year end position is therefore a deficit of £1,401k which is an underspend of £198k compared to budget.
10 There was an overspend on general repairs and maintenance totalling £343k as a result of a combination of additional job volumes and increased material costs. However there was an underspend of £425k on the electrical testing programme due to a later than forecast start of the newly procured electrical testing programme contract. This has resulted in an overall underspend of £82k across the revenue budget. To assist with the continuing efforts to deal with the increasing cost of repairs it is recommended that this underspend is carried forward to support the repairs budget in 2022/23.
11 There was an underspend of £350k within General Management primarily due to the service having a number of vacancies across the year (-£166k) as well as court admin costs (-£74k).
12 The HRA financial assistance scheme was created in 2020/21 to provide financial support and assistance to HRA tenants with their rent arrears, a new partner advice services has been created to provide a more streamlined service across all aspects of debt advice. There was an underspend of £44k in 2021/22 on this scheme and it is recommended that this be carried forward in to 2022/23 for the rent arrears element of this service to continue.
13 There was a shortfall in dwelling rents of £192k due to the number of void properties and the time taken to complete the required works to bring these empty homes to a lettable standard. A pilot commenced in October 2021 to improve the turnaround of void properties, which is continuing in to the new financial year.
14 The revenue contribution to capital has underspent by £2.1m due to the slippage of capital expenditure. These funds will be carried forward to 2022/23 to fund the slippage
15 The working balance position at 31 March 2021 was £28.83m. The projected outturn position outlined in paragraph 46 means the working balance increased to £29.57m at 31 March 2022. This compares to the balance forecast within the latest business plan of £27.2m.
16 There are a number of ongoing implications of the outturn position into 2022/23. It is necessary to reprofile the revenue contributions funding the capital programme slippage of £2,138k into 2022/23. This leaves a balance of £199k from which £82k has been requested to fund the increasing repair costs and £44k from the financial assistance scheme has been requested to carry forward in to 2022/23, leaving a balance of £72k to contribute to the ongoing HRA working balance.
Performance – Service Delivery
17 In spite of the many challenges that the organisation and City has faced over the last two years, 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.
18 It is likely that due to impacts of COVID, a number of the Council Plan indicators will continue to see a 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.
19 Over recent months, the cost of living has continued to rise, due in part to the following:
· The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast inflation to be above 7% until at least Q1 2023-24, which is much higher than originally forecast in October 2021. In response to higher inflation, interest rates have been raised from a low of 0.1% to 0.75% in March 2022.
· In the year to March 2022, domestic gas prices increased by 28% and domestic electricity prices by 19%, due in part to a return of global gas demand as pandemic restrictions are lifted and lower than normal production of natural gas.
· Food price inflation is expected to rise further reflecting the pass through of cost increases over recent months.
· Benefits increased by 3.1% if April 2022, which is less than the current (and expected) level of inflation.
20 This crisis will have an impact on residents, particularly those from lower income families, and businesses in the city. A number of performance indicators across all eight council plan themes will be affected in the short term, with both financial and reputational impacts. These indicators will be monitored and reported on through performance management framework processes over the coming months.
21 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.
22 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
23 Between April 2021 and September 2021 there were 160 net additional homes completed. This represents a lower level of completions than anticipated which can largely be attributed to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on working practices, labour force capacity and building material supply, with this indicator predicted to increase in line with projections set out in Local Plan. Of these additional homes:
· 99% were completed on housing sites;
· A total of 122 new build homes were completed whilst 1 home was demolished
· Changes of use to existing buildings for residential use and conversions to existing residential properties accounted for 24% of all homes completed
· Individual sites that saw the construction of five or less dwellings contributed an additional 35 homes (22%)
· Development sites including Germany Beck and the Former Lowfield School site all provided notable completions over the year.
24 Data for the full year 2021-22 will be available in June 2022 and will be published on the Council website and in Q1 F+P as per previous years.
Net Housing Consents
25 Between April 2021 and September 2021, there were 108 net housing consents. Of these consents, the main features were;
· 78.7% were granted on traditional housing sites;
· 21 senior living homes (19.4%) were approved at Beverley House in Clifton
· Sites granted approval for traditional housing included Duncombe Barracks, the Crescent and Heworth.
26 Compared to previous updates this represents a significant drop in the level of housing consents. However, a further 266 homes had the benefit of approval by Councillors through a resolution to grant planning permission subject to the completion of legal agreements and are likely to add to overall consent levels before the end of the full 12 month monitoring period. The sites and capacities included in this figure are:
· Plumbase – Waterloo House, Fawcett Street (83)
· Barnitts – 28A Colliergate (12)
· Cherry Tree House – 218 Fifth Avenue (48)
· Burnholme Community Hub – Mossdale Avenue (83)
27 Further, the former York City Football Club site in Bootham Crescent was approved for 93 new homes in August 2020 and is due to have a legal agreement signed off. It is anticipated that these will add to the end of year consents total.
28 Data for the full year 2021-22 will be available in June 2022.
Number of homeless households with dependent children in temporary accommodation
29 The latest available data shows that there are 27 homeless households with dependent children in temporary accommodation at the end of Q3 2021-22. This figure remains higher than normal, although it is a slight reduction from Q2, but it should be noted that these figures are snapshot figures and therefore may fluctuate between the snapshot dates.
30 Data for 2021-22 around the number of people sleeping rough on a single night was released in February 2022. In response to areas of improvement identified in a compliance review, small values (between 1 and 4) are now supressed. The latest data for York is 1-4 which is less than the pre-pandemic figure of 7.
Average number of days to re-let empty Council properties (excluding temporary accommodation)
31 The average number of days to re-let empty Council properties (excluding temporary accommodation) was 74 days at the end of 2021-22. This is an increase from 67 days at the end of 2020-21.
32 The effects of the pandemic and Brexit continue to impact performance on re-letting council properties. Whilst dealing with pent up demand following national lockdowns, additional covid related challenges have slowed progress including new safety checks and staffing availability through both staff illness/isolation and vacancy controls. Lack of availability and increased costs of materials and 3rd party labour as a result of Brexit have further impeded the service. Brexit has also affected recruitment in some areas. An ‘Impacts of Brexit and Covid’ report which outlines the key issues and action plan to address them was submitted to the Housing & Community Safety Policy & Scrutiny Committee in October:
http://modgov.york.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=963&MId=13035
Energy efficiency – Average SAP rating for all Council Homes
33 No update since the Q3 2021-22 Monitor as annual data.
Number of new affordable homes delivered in York
34 The number of new affordable homes delivered in York remains high, with 224 delivered during 2021-22. This is a large increase on the 130 delivered during 2020-21.
35 Over the 10 year period from February 2012 to February 2022, the average house price in York rose by 64% (compared to 55% regionally and 70% nationally). The ratio of house prices to mean annual salary sheds some light on the relative affordability of owner occupied housing. In 2021, the ratio of house prices to the average annual salary in York rose by 19% to 8.27:1 from 2020 (compared to an increase of 10% to 5.87:1 regionally and an increase of 12% to 7.54:1 nationally).
Superfast broadband availability/Average broadband download speed (Mbs)
36 In 2021-22, 95.53% of properties in York had access to superfast broadband, which compares to 94.13% in 2020-21. This increase can be attributed to the Council’s continued work with service providers to improve infrastructure.
37 The average broadband download speed in York in 2020-21 was 147.1Mb/s, which compares to 56.1 Mb/s in 2019-20. 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. Data for 2021-22 will be available in June 2022.
% of Talkabout panel satisfied with their local area as a place to live
38 Talkabout panel surveys are run twice a year in Q1 and Q3 and therefore there is no update in this monitor. Previous data is shown within the table.
All Crime per 1000 population
39 Overall crime levels in York for 2021-22 show that levels have risen slightly since 2020-21 and are back to pre-pandemic levels (67.4 in 2021-22 and 66 in 2019-20).
Number of Incidents of ASB within the city centre (Alcohol Restriction Zone)
40 There were 1,276 incidents of anti-social behaviour during 2021-22, compared to 1,410 in 2020-21, and continues the year-on-year reduction seen since 2018-19.
Annexes
41 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
42 Not applicable.
Options
43 Not applicable.
Council Plan
44 The information and issues included in this report demonstrate progress on achieving the priorities set out in the Council Plan.
Implications
45 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
46 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 LookerHead of Service Finance
Ian Cunningham Head of Business Intelligence |
Neil FerrisCorporate Director of Place
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Report Approved |
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Date |
08/07/22 |
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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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Annexes
Annex 1 – Housing and Community Safety 2021/22
Glossary of Abbreviations used in the report:
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ASB |
Anti Social Behaviour |
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HRA |
Housing Revenue Account |
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OBR |
Office for Budget Responsibility |
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SAP |
Standard Assessment Procedure |