Agenda item

(Finance – Cllr. J Philip) To approve the Qualis 1-Year Business Plan for 2022/23 (C-020-2022/23).

1)         Cabinet approved the 1 Year Qualis Business Plan, including the specific permission set out within the covering report (Para 4.10 of the report); and

(2)        The Cabinet delegated to the Finance Portfolio Holder the negotiation of commercial terms with Qualis for contracting out of the management of the Council’s commercial assets, thereby formalising the interim arrangements which were due to end on the 30^th September 2022, (including the formal transfer of the 2 asset management staff).

The Finance Portfolio Holder introduced the report. He noted that events at a national and global level had introduced a rapidly changing and volatile position which was impacting heavily upon the Council’s own financial planning.  Qualis was far from immune to these impacts and was needing to adapt and change its plans in response to external influences and factors, inflation not being the least of these. In this space Qualis have brought forward a 1-year plan which responds to the uncertainty immediately in front of them. The medium-term impacts on their strategy will be reflected in the 4-year Business Plan which will be presented when the current uncertainty reduces.

This report presented the 1 Year Qualis Business Plan and sought the Council’s permission to adopt this as its direction and focus. 

Qualis was initially created by the Council to solve specific problems including the housing maintenance contract re-let and to progress a number of council owned regeneration sites.  In the last Business Plan the Council had worked with Qualis to explore and refine its future purpose and the emerging focus was that of property development and management company. The shared ambition sought to consolidate all property Council management and development activities under the Qualis umbrella so that their specialism and expertise could be utilised to provided better quality and better value services. 

This Business Plan sought to build on and further develop this intention.  However, the work jointly undertaken by Qualis and the Council to develop this plan has had to take account of the uncertain economic landscape and was deliberately more cautious as a result.

Councillor Bedford asked if quotes from contractors were guaranteed for only 12 to 14 weeks or more open ended for up to 6 months. He was told that at present it was for the shorter period. Contractors were not prepared to hold prices for 6 months at present.

Councillor Lion if these conditions would affect the regeneration schemes. He was told it was important to distinguish between the Housing Revenue regeneration schemes, such as the Limes Farm scheme. Quails sets aside loans to do regeneration within the district, the challenge was to find commercial areas where this could happen, which was proving difficult at the moment.

Councillor Murray noted that, admittedly through anecdotal evidence, that the quality of Quails housing repairs and their interface with the tenants, was not good. He was told that in general the work done by Qualis was off an acceptable standard. They were also regular meetings with Qualis management to give appropriate feedback, which enabled quicker response from them.

Decision:

1)         Cabinet approved the 1 Year Qualis Business Plan, including the specific permission set out within the covering report (Para 4.10 of the report); and

2)         The Cabinet delegated to the Finance Portfolio Holder the negotiation of commercial terms with Qualis for contracting out of the management of the Council’s commercial assets, thereby formalising the interim arrangements which were due to end on the 30^th September 2022, (including the formal transfer of the 2 asset management staff).