Issue - meetings

As recommendation.

The Executive Member introduced the report to seek approval for the establishment of an in-house team to deliver disabled adaptations within Council properties. 

The Executive Member detailed the background to the report and highlighted paragraph 2.06 where it was reported that where a Council house adaptation was being sought, the Social Services duty team now referred the applicant to the relevant Neighbourhood Housing Office initially, for advice on alternative properties, which may be more suitable, or which were already adapted or could be adapted at lower cost.  Currently all adaptations in Council properties provided through a Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) were competitively tendered to a pool of local contractors.  The process to identify a contractor currently took an average of 10 weeks.  Should an in-house team be established for the delivery of adaptations in council homes, then the tendering period, award of contract and sometimes lengthy contractor start date would be stripped out of the process.    

Paragraph 3.06 identified staffing and associated costs for 2011/12 and it was reported in paragraph 3.09 that there may be further opportunities to increase income to the service by purchasing all materials through the Council’s outsourced stores arrangement with Travis Perkins.  It was the intention to look initially within the existing trades teams for employees seeking to be seconded to this work for a trial period of 12 months.  The proposals had been fully supported when they had been considered at a recent meeting of the Housing Overview and Scrutiny Committee. 

The Director of Community Services said that this was a key area of need and the improvements proposed would promote efficiency.    

RESOLVED:

That the establishment of an in-house team to deliver Disabled Adaptations in council property (via the Disabled Facilities Grant process), on the terms outlined in the report and initially for a 12 month period be agreed.