Minutes:
In accordance with Council Procedure Rules, the following question was asked by Councillor M Wilkes.
There are over 6000 empty homes in County Durham. At the full council budget meeting in February 2018 we agreed to fund three additional staff for the empty homes department for THREE years. My proposal was the only opposition budget motion to ever get passed by this authority.
Posts were advertised and three employees appointed who started in June 2018.
One left in December 2018 and it took until April 2019 to appoint someone new.
Then in December 2019 the manager left and their post was deleted.
And in April 2020 the two people who were appointed in June 2018 finished because they were not given three year contracts they were only given 2 year contracts.
So over three years, instead of having three new employees the council had two employees, working for less than 2 years and another position for significantly less than that.
And the Council got rid of the managers position.
One can only imagine how much More would have been achieved if what we voted on had actually been put in place and the department not slashed.
So can the portfolio holder please explain to us all why when we all voted for three posts for three years, the posts were only for 2 years and why the managers position was scrapped, further depleting the department, and most importantly did he know about any of this?”
Councillor K Shaw, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Strategic Housing and Assets thanked Councillor Wilkes for his question and provided the following response.
Empty properties have always been a priority for the council and as portfolio holder, I was happy to support your amendment, which then became part of the Substantive Motion, in February 2018 on the basis that we have a need to bring as many empty homes as possible back into use and help us tackle homelessness and meet our housing strategy ambitions.
It is important to consider the outcomes being delivered from whatever investment we make and review our performance to date in considering the best approach to achieve the outcomes we all support.
In the financial year prior to 2018, the empty property team were responsible for bringing 198 properties back into use. In the following year, with all 3 additional members of staff in place, the number brough back into use dropped to 186 (a year on year reduction of 12) before recovering in 2019/20 to 212 (14 more than the pre motion position).
As you will be aware, at the time the motion as agreed in 2018, the intention was to provide additional funding for these posts for three years funded by an expectation of additional New Homes Bonus being generated.
In terms of recruitment, you are right that in June 2018, following the budget amendment, 3 officers were originally contracted for a two-year period and as you state for a 4 month period this number reduced to 2.
I am advised that when a post is classed as temporary, it is Council policy to initially recruit on a two-year basis with the opportunity to extend for further years.
Whilst one of the posts was not filled for four months, this was despite the efforts of the management of the service, with a number of adverts placed to try to recruit to the vacancy. Unfortunately, we were unable to fill the roles due to a lack of experienced or qualified applicants at that time.
The service did, however, make an internal appointment with the view of training the officer, which continues today. This person is still employed by the team providing an important role to support this priority agenda.
In April 2020 when the initial contracts for two of the officers were ending, lockdown was in place and there were few opportunities to take forward the empty property work.
A decision was therefore taken to review the empty property work against the targets and past performance and to look at the potential of work progressing through the pandemic.
The result of this initial review by the service management was that two of the three contracts were not to be extended, with further work to be looked at on how we could better deliver on the outcomes that were agreed by full council
Cabinet will consider in due course if the review will meet the expectations and outcomes on which council previously agreed the additional funding.
Officers were also minded at that time that the budget provision for these posts was due to come to an end at the end of this financial year.
It would be quite wrong of me to pre-empt any decision regarding future funding for these posts outside of the three-year agreed as this is being brought forward next month.
It is clear to me that unless you deal with the problems that creates vacant and long-term void properties, the opportunities of convincing or incentivising an owner to bring it back into use are limited.
Where the council has intervened in a coordinated way, we have seen a dramatic improvement in reducing the numbers of empty properties examples such as in Easington Colliery and Ferryhill Station where selective landlord licencing has been implemented previously; and the introduction of the Local Letting Agency which is buying up or renting empty properties to help our most disadvantaged people.
Councillor Wilkes asked a supplementary question
Could the Portfolio holder please give assurances that the Council will continue to have at least six staff working solely on empty homes and a manager with sufficient time to assist with this
Councillor K Shaw provided the following response:
The Council has, just before Christmas, submitted one of the most comprehensive selective licencing schemes in the country to support the quality and management of the private rented accommodation with over 40% of the private rented sector to be the focus of intensive work, one of the primary objectives of which was to deal with low demand and if approved by the Secretary of State we will see a significant increase in resource dealing with the problems associated with the private rented sector. We would also be using a multi-agency approach.
We have been successful in bringing over £2m of grant to help residents in fuel poverty which we hope will bring yet more properties back into use and in Horden, funding is now in place to start the regeneration of one of the areas most affected by empty properties.
The measures that have been put in place have reduced management across the service but this has not impacted on either the performance or capacity of the team which has remained consistent.
I would like to take the opportunity, as I know Scrutiny Committee have also done so on a number of occasions, to thank all of the officers involved in our housing service. Particularly the dedication over these challenging times in keeping people in their tenancies, the ground breaking work in preventing evictions and in the support they have provided over 100 rough sleepers to find accommodation as well as ensuring every one of our rough sleepers were housed within 24 hours of the government ask.