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Housing and Community Safety Policy and Scrutiny Committee
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14 March 2023 |
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Report of the Corporate Director of Economy and Place |
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2022/23 Finance and Performance Monitor 3
Summary
1. This report provides details of the Q3 2022-23 monitoring position for both finance and performance across Housing & Community Safety. The paper incorporates data to December 2022, which was reported to Executive on 9 February 2023.
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 Analysis Q3 2022-23
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 |
14,502 |
-15,021 |
-519 |
0 |
|
Housing Options and Homelessness |
5,199 |
-3,656 |
1,543 |
0 |
|
Private Sector Housing |
1,331 |
-1,071 |
260 |
0 |
|
Community Safety |
785 |
-81 |
704 |
0 |
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Housing and Com. Safety (Gen Fund) |
21,817 |
-19,829 |
1,988 |
0 |
4. The Housing and Community Safety service are forecasting a nil variance at quarter 3 within the 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. There are pressures arising from increased energy costs at the two general fund hostels however it is considered that these can be offset from savings arising from staffing vacancies and maximising the use of external funding.
Housing Revenue Account
6. The Housing Revenue Account budget for 2022/23 is a deficit of £347k. The rising cost of utilities is having a big impact on the HRA budgets as well as other inflationary rises such as the pay award and the cost of materials and repairs, with the overall forecast being £1.7m above the budget, an improvement of £268k since quarter 2. The table below provides additional detail along with commentary below.
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Activity area |
2022/23 Net Budget |
Forecast 2022/23 |
Variance |
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£’000 |
£’000 |
£’000 |
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Repairs & Maintenance |
8,270 |
8,870 |
600 |
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General Management |
6,843 |
6,613 |
-230 |
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Special Services |
3,391 |
3,991 |
600 |
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Other Expenditure |
17,857 |
17,875 |
18 |
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Dwelling rents |
-33,244 |
-32,753 |
491 |
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Non-Dwelling Rents |
-456 |
-430 |
26 |
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Charges for Services |
-1,854 |
-1,617 |
237 |
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Other Income |
-460 |
-460 |
0 |
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Total |
347 |
2,089 |
+1,742 |
7. The cost of repairs to council housing stock has risen since the start of the year due to these inflationary increases in pay award, materials, sub-contractor costs and fuel rises. The level of such increases are far higher than was forecast when the budget was set, as such the Repairs Team are expecting a pressure on the cost of maintaining our housing stock of around c£600k in 2022/23.
8. The loss of rental income for general needs properties, hostels and shared ownership properties has slightly improved since the last quarter due to the income from the additional temporary accommodation at Crombie House and Ordnance Lane. The voids remain high with an overall loss of income of £491k below budget. A third of these properties are long term voids, such as Glen Lodge and Bell Farm, where the properties are awaiting large scale capital works, this programme of works is expected to take place in 2023/24.
9. The cost of gas and electric have increased far higher than the original forecast and continues to be a pressure on the budgets of the Independent Living Schemes and Hostels, however the increase in October was lower than initially forecast, reducing the pressure on utilities to £590k. The insurance for Housing stock has increased by £151k above the budget as the insurance policy has increased fire risk premiums.
10. When taking out one-off expenditure items relating to revenue contributions to capital, the HRA is effectively breaking even in the year which is unsustainable in the long term. The Government have capped the rent increase for 2023/24 at 7% to protect residents against the potential cost of high inflationary rent increases. Whilst this is good news for residents (particularly those not in receipt of benefits), as the inflationary gap is not supported by government funding, this will put significant pressure on the HRA going forward as costs increase quicker than income. This will lead to savings being required from the HRA in future years.
11. The HRA working balance position as at 31st March 2022 was £29.57m. The HRA projected outturn position means the working balance will reduce to £27.48m at 31st March 2023. This compares to the balance forecast within the latest business plan of £29.15m. The current HRA debt totals £149m.
12. 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
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. 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
17. Between 1 April 2022 and 30 September 2022 there were a total of 337 net housing completions. This represents a near return to pre-pandemic levels of housing completions and the figures are similar to those achieved in both 2018 and 2019 for the same 6-month monitoring period. However, this year’s figures are heavily influenced by the completion of 232 student flats at Frederick House, and with labour and materials shortages still being experienced by housebuilders, these factors continue to affect housing delivery rates throughout the authority area. Data for the full 2022-23 reporting year will be available in July 2023
18. Some of the main features of the housing completions have been;
· 232 student cluster flats were completed at Frederick House in time for the new academic year;
· 107 homes were competed on housing sites;
· A total of 319 new build homes were completed whilst 3 homes were demolished;
· Individual sites that saw the construction of five or less dwellings contributed an additional 42 homes, and
· Development sites at the Germany Beck site in Fulford (40) and the Former Lowfield School site (16) were the most significant individual sites that provided housing completions, whilst the first completions at the Former Civil Service Club, Boroughbridge Road (4) also took place.
Net Housing Consents
19. Planning applications determined between 1 April 2022 and 30 September 2022 resulted in the approval of 467 net additional homes. Compared to last year’s update covering the same equivalent monitoring period this represents a return to a level of consents needed to meet our housing requirement. Data for the full 2022-23 reporting year will be available in July 2023.
20. The main features of the consents approved were;
· 261 of all net homes consented (55.9%) were granted on traditional (Use Class C3) housing sites;
· Sites granted approval for traditional (Use Class C3) housing included Development Site Hospital Fields Road and Ordnance Lane (85), Os Field 2800 Eastfield Lane Dunnington (83), and Cherry Tree House 218 Fifth Avenue (48);
· Approval was granted for two privately managed student accommodation developments that totalled 208 ‘cluster’ flats at Mecca Bingo 68 Fishergate (104) and Alton Cars York Ltd 3 James Street (104) and represents 44.5% of all approvals over the monitoring period;
· A further 158 homes in Copmanthorpe were approved through a resolution to grant consent by councillors with the application being referred to the Secretary of State for determination;
· An application on Land North of Monks Cross that is allocated within the draft Local Plan (ST8) for 970 homes went to appeal in January 2022 due to non-determination and a decision from the Secretary of State is imminent. Indications are that CYC Planning Committee would have approved this scheme if the Local Plan had been adopted, and
· A further application for circa 300 homes at Huntington South Moor, New Lane also went to appeal in January and has been sent to the Secretary of State for consideration. CYC do not support this site for development.
Number of homeless households with dependent children in temporary accommodation
21. The latest available data shows that the number of households with dependent children in temporary accommodation has reduced from 28 at Q4 2021-22 to 22 at Q1 2022-23. This is 43% of total households in temporary accommodation at Q1, which is a decrease from 57% at the end of 2021-22 where numbers had risen throughout the year. The national figures for England consistently showed throughout 2021-22 that around 62% of households in temporary accommodation were households with children.
22. When looking at the total number of households in temporary accommodation per households in area (000s), York performs positively compared to national benchmarks (0.58 in York compared to 3.97 Nationally, 0.89 Regionally and 15.46 in London). It should be noted that these figures are snapshot figures and therefore may fluctuate between the snapshot dates.
Average number of days to re-let empty Council properties (excluding temporary accommodation)
24. The Building Services department continues to experience significant challenges associated with the national issues of significant competition for skilled tradespeople and the shortage of building materials. This is in addition to the service continuing to work through the pent up demand for the service following the full release of lockdown restrictions. At the start of the last calendar year, an “Action Plan” was created to support improvement through these challenges. The total number of void properties at the end of December 2022 was 85. This has reduced from a peak of 152 at the end of October 2021, but still remains high.
Energy efficiency – Average SAP rating for all Council Homes
25. The provisional average SAP rating for all Council homes in 2021-22 is 70.6. This is primarily based on our stock condition survey of 2019. A large scale stock appraisal exercise is underway as part of development of an energy efficiency and retrofit strategy for council homes, a process which includes work with carbon reduction analysts, Parity Projects Portfolio, to model energy performance, and identify the most cost-effective route to net-zero. One key output of this work will be a detailed analysis of multiple sources of energy performance data, however further property surveys are needed in order to update the current estimate.
Number of new affordable homes delivered in York
26. There were 224 new affordable homes delivered in York during 2021-22 which was a large increase on the 130 delivered during 2020-21.
28. There is a significant future pipeline of affordable homes with planning permission in place across the council’s own newbuild development programme and section 106 planning gain negotiated affordable housing. Inclusive of applications with a resolution to approve from Planning Committee, there are around 950 affordable homes identified in approved planning applications. The progress ranges from sites that are being built out currently to others with substantial infrastructure or remediation challenges to resolve prior to development. Over 350 of these have progressed through detailed planning, either as a Full application or Reserved Matters. The remainder are at Outline stage, with more uncertainty on timescales and final delivery levels, including the York Central affordable housing contribution.
Superfast broadband availability/Average broadband download speed (Mbs)
29. In 2022-23, 96.3% of properties in York had access to superfast broadband (download speeds of at least 30 Mbit/s), which compares to 95.5% in 2021-22. Nationally 96.9% of UK homes can access superfast broadband although more than a quarter (27%) who have access to it have not taken it up.
30. With households now using 482 GB of data a month on average, full fibre can better support families who need to stream, work, game, video-call and study online all at the same time. Full-fibre connections – along with upgraded cable networks – can deliver download speeds of one gigabit per second (Gbit/s) or higher. In total, gigabit-capable broadband through a range of technologies is now available to 74% of York households (70% of the UK), up from 61.3% last year (47% Nationally). This increase can be attributed to the Council’s continuing work with service providers around improving infrastructure.
31. The average broadband download speed in York in 2022-23 was 177.5 Mb/s, which compares to 159.3 Mb/s in 2021-22 and 147.1 Mb/s in 2020-21. The national benchmark download speed is 106.1 Mb/s in 2022-23. 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
32. Results from the Q3 2022-23 Talkabout survey showed that 83% of the panel were satisfied with York as a place to live, and 82% were satisfied with their local area, both consistent with results from Q1 2022-23. 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 79% (Community Life Survey 2020-21) and 78% (Local Government Association Poll February 2022).
All Crime per 1000 population
Number of Incidents of ASB within the city centre (Alcohol Restriction Zone)
36. Across the city as a whole, there were 3,492 calls for service recorded by North Yorkshire Police linked to anti-social behaviour during the first eight months of 2022-23 (up to the end of November). This is lower than during the same reporting period in previous years (4,779 in 2021-22 and 6,268 in 2020-21).
Annexes
37. All performance data (and approximately 1,200 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
38. Not applicable.
Options
39. Not applicable.
Council Plan
40. The information and issues included in this report demonstrate progress on achieving the priorities set out in the Council Plan.
Implications
41. 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
42. 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 FinanceExt 1633
Ian Cunningham Head of Business Intelligence Ext 5749 |
Debbie MitchellChief Finance Officer
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Report Approved |
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Date |
02/03/2023 |
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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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CYC |
City of York Council |
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HRA |
Housing Revenue Account |
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SAP |
Standard Assessment Procedure |