Agenda item

As detailed in the recommendations.

The Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance welcomed the report which provided details on supporting the achievement of Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) by 2020 and commencing on a council house building programme of approximately 200 homes over five years in early 2016.

The Chief Officer (Community and Enterprise) provided background details on the draft Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Budget for 2015/16 and the HRA Business Plan developed for the introduction of self-financing in April 2015.

The UK Government and the Welsh Government (WG) had reached an agreement to change the financing arrangements for council housing in Wales from April 2015.  A new rent policy had also been introduced which Flintshire was required to implement from April 2015, full details of which were provided in the report.

On the introduction of self financing, the annual subsidy payment of £73m from the eleven stock owning councils across Wales, c£6m from Flintshire, to WG and on to the UK Treasury would cease.  The new arrangement would see the annual subsidy payment replaced by a one off payment of c£920m, with the eleven councils being required to take out loans from the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) which equated to £40m per annum in interest charges.  In addition to this, a total borrowing cap of £1.85b had been set for all eleven councils which included the borrowing need to meet the settlement figure, existing HRA borrowing, planned borrowing to meet WHQS and a small amount to start a new build programme.

The Council had an aspiration to build council housing to meet unmet need for social housing and self financing provided an opportunity for that in the coming years.

Details of Flintshire’s borrowing requirements and/or limits for borrowing were detailed in the report, with the initial borrowing of c£92m to achieve settlement resulting in a basket of loans of varying lengths.

Councils were required to implement the new WG rent policy from April 2015.  Target rent bands were set for each landlord based on a consistent set of principles and a common methodology across Wales for both local authorities and housing associations.  Landlord rents would be based on locality, size, quality and type of dwelling.  Rents would be higher for houses and bungalows compared to flats and maisonettes and the framework would be fixed until 2018/19.  There was flexibility for each landlord to set the rent band at target, 5% below or 5% above.

Where a landlords weekly rent was lower than the rent band, rents were set at the September CPI figures plus 1.5% plus up to £2 per week, to work towards rent convergence.  Where rents were above target, which applied to approximately 1000 Flintshire homes, then the rent increase would be inflation (1.2%) plus 1.5% up to minus £2 until the weekly rent fell within the target rent band.  The Business Plan appended to the report described the average rent currently payable and the target rent for each property type.  Some tenancies could take up to seven years to achieve the target rent.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment thanked the Chief Officer for the report and expressed his delight that the authority had not taken the route of stock transfer.  By retaining the housing stock, and the new council houses which were to be built, jobs would be brought to the county which was welcomed. 

The Cabinet Member for Waste Strategy, Public Protection and Leisure concurred with the views of the Deputy Leader, particularly on the building of council houses in the near future as the Council had previously sold many of their council houses under the right to buy scheme.

RESOLVED:

That Cabinet recommend the following to Council on 17 February for approval:

1. The proposed HRA budget for 2015/16 as set out in the Business Plan at Appendix A, with the 30 year financial assumptions in Appendix B and service efficiency and investment proposals in Appendix C
2. The level of rents for 2015/16 as set out in the Business Plan with target rents applied for new tenancies and the introduction of service charges for new tenancies
3. The proposed HRA Capital Programme for 2015/16 as set out in Appendix D