Issue - meetings

That the report be noted.

The Chief Officer (Housing and Assets) introduced a report to present a summary of performance for the Year-end position of 2018/19 for the Council Plan priorities ‘Supportive Council’ and ‘Ambitious Council’ relevant to the Committee.  The report was an exception based report and therefore focused on the areas of under-performance. 

The Benefits Manager and Service Manager – Housing Programmes provided an update on the following performance indicators and which showed a red RAG status for current performance against target:

·         The number of additional Council homes being built through the SHARP programme;

·         Average number of calendar days taken to deliver a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG); and

·         debt levels will rise if tenants are unable to afford to pay their rent or council tax

            The Chairman invited Councillor Patrick Heesom to ask a question, who was attending the meeting as an observer.  Councillor Heesom referred to the performance indicator to address the increasing frequency of unauthorised Gypsy and Traveller encampments and improve the Council’s own permanent site and asked if an update on the grant to deliver this from Welsh Government (WG) could be provided.  The Service Manager – Housing Programmes advised that an application for Capital Site Grant funding had been made to WG to improve the aesthetics of the Riverside site, and the Council had secured £250,000 capital funding for refurbishments.  It was hoped that the work would be completed before the end of the financial year.

            In response to concerns raised by Members around the volume of rubbish at the Riverside site, the Chief Officer advised that the funding would assist in refurbishing the site but also in managing the site in the future, which would now be the responsibility of the Council, as opposed to the previous and historic agency type arrangement.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.