Agenda item

Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder. To receive a report (C-043-2020-21) on proposed administration fees for carrying out non statutory requests from tenants, leaseholders and homeowners.

The Cabinet approved the proposed administration fees for carrying out non statutory requests from tenants, leaseholders and homeowners.     

The Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder introduced the report on Housing Management Charges.

It was noted that EFDC owned approximately 12,000 assets including properties and garages. In addition to these, the Council owned other assets such as parcels of land, pathways, un-adopted roads, alleyways and grassed areas on residential estates. 

A review of the staffing structure was carried out during the latter period of 2019, a decision was made to split the housing management team into 3 separate teams.  The reason for this was to enable specialisms which would lead to improved services for residents.  In addition, the Council would then be in a position to review charges for non-statutory requests. This report set out the review of services which did not currently attract a charge.  

There was a cost to the District Council to carry out non-statutory tasks and these costs were not currently recovered.  It was good practice to have a clear charging process agreed for these requests, so not putting pressure on the HRA account.  Furthermore, any income can be regenerated to improve service provision for our communities.

A desk top review was carried out with comparable Councils to ensure we were charging a fair and reasonable charge.

Councillor Philip commented that it made a lot of sense, to balance some of the costs we incurred by doing this and ensuring that the people who benefited from these activities were the ones paying for it.

Councillor Chris Pond asked why was the permission to create front garden parking a very exact price of £75.09p, and what is the policy on parking on verges in front of houses. He was told that the charges had been benchmarked and assessed against other similar charges. As for people parking on grass verges, they should not be parking there, and we would take action where possible. As for parking in your front garden, we did have a specific policy, and could attach the policy to the minutes.

Councillor Wixley noted that we no longer created extra parking on Council land, hence more parking on verges. Also, what about skip licence fees, they were parked for some time and would tend to kill off the grass underneath. The Portfolio Holder took his point about the mess made on verges.  Residents had to apply for a licence to park a skip, which helped us regulate the situation and could follow up on any damage caused. Councillor Murray asked if reinstatement for any damage caused by a skip was part of the licence conditions. He was told officers would investigate this.

Councillor Murray went on to ask if there was any discretion on loss of Fobs with tenants with special needs. He was told that on officers would use their discretion when dealing with the loss of fobs in exceptional circumstances.

Decision:

The Cabinet approved the proposed administration fees for carrying out non statutory requests from tenants, leaseholders and homeowners.     

Reasons for Proposed Decision:

This report sets out the proposal to introduce reasonable administration costs to cover tasks carried out which are non-statutory requests.  It should be noted that housing management changes sits under the Housing Revenue Account.

Other Options for Action:

Not to have a clearly stated charging system.