Council and democracy

Agenda item

Leaseholder Satisfaction Survey Results and Initial Action Plan

Minutes:

The report was presented by Chris Seman.

 

The Chair noted that the results showed that leaseholders did not feel that they were getting value for money on their service charges and asked how this could be resolved. He commented that some of the blocks of flats were not in good conditions compared to private blocks of flats and he felt that more could be done to ensure a nicer place to live. He suggested using focus groups to identify what leaseholders wanted. The Vice-Chair commented that leaseholders complained about damp and mould and paint issues. Councillor Abbas said that it was hard to justify service charge increases when there was a high level of dissatisfaction. He also asked why the survey had not collected more detailed data to identify why leaseholders were dissatisfied.

 

Chris Seman explained that the service was looking to deliver focus groups as soon as it was possible to do so which would help to identify why leaseholders were dissatisfied as the survey did not show these reasons. Once these reasons were identified, it would help the service to identify what needed to be focused on.

 

Adding to this, Ian Wake noted the Chair’s earlier comparison to private blocks of flats and pointed out that service charges in private flats were likely to be higher than what these leaseholders were paying. He said that these leaseholders’ blocks of flats had low level Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) which Officers could look into on a ‘postcode level’ to identify where the ASB was occurring to address these issues but that officers would need to identify the reasons behind leaseholders’ dissatisfaction to work out a coaching plan. In regards to the survey, he said that the first stage was in collecting quantitative data to understand the issues in terms of the categories and then to conduct further focused and targeted engagements to understand the reasons behind the quantitative data.

 

Tracy John added that with the Capital Programme and a decorations programme, this could increase the service charges for leaseholders. She went on to say that there was a difference between leaseholders and tenants in these areas that the service would look to identify the reasons for this through the focus groups.

 

Councillor Redsell asked how many people had the survey been sent to. She said that people had to take pride in the area that they lived in but if it was not well maintained, people would not take pride in it. She said that people were expected to keep diaries of ASB on council owned properties and that the Council should take responsibility there. She felt that the Council should be aware of where ASB was occurring where flats were not looked after or in good condition and suggested that Officers should physically check properties as had been undertaken in the past. She stated that the Council was the landlord and should aim to keep properties up to standards and felt that where it was not, it did not look good for the area. Chris Seman answered that there were just under 900 leaseholders and every leaseholder was posted the survey except for those that lived abroad. The survey was emailed to leaseholders to those who had not received the postal copy and a second postal survey was sent as well.

 

Councillor Worrall stated that the survey showed that the service was not good enough and mirrored how people felt in council properties. She said that the service needed to identify why leaseholders felt that they were not getting good value for money as they were charged a lot of money. She highlighted concerns on the survey’s low satisfaction level of staff dealing with enquiries and questioned if there was enough staff there and if they were properly trained to be able to answer general queries. In regards to ASB on car parking, she noted that parking permits would be considered and she felt that this was not the right approach to resolve this issue and that the service needed to identify the reasons behind the ASB. In regards to focus groups, she questioned how the Committee would be able to measure the improvements from this survey as they would need to wait a year for the outcome. She agreed with Councillor Redsell’s earlier comments on Officers going out to check council properties and said that Officers should be assigned an area to look after. Chris Seman answered that leaseholder survey outcomes would be measured through a tracker survey on a yearly basis which would focus on the issues raised by leaseholders and measure the improvements that would be implemented. The service also had an ongoing programme of telephone satisfaction surveys that gave results on a monthly basis and the service was also looking to implement a six month leaseholder satisfaction survey next year. Ian Wake added that the service would have a better understanding of what the solutions would be once conversations with leaseholders were held. The service would then need to implement these solutions and then re-measure before bringing an update back to Committee to collectively decide how and when to measure these solutions.

 

Councillor Churchman commented that a basic service such as acquiring a caretaker took a year which was not satisfactory. Tracy John answered that caretaking charges were not always included in service charges and was aware that there was an issue in areas that did not have a caretaking service currently. A review was in place to identify ways to bring a caretaking service in without increasing costs for leaseholders and tenants and hoped to make progress over the next 12 months.

 

Members commented that the issues highlighted had been going on for a long time and that the report had provided the information needed about leaseholder properties which highlighted how leaseholders felt. Members looked forward to future reports on this.

 

RESOLVED:

 

That the Committee noted and commented on the report.

Supporting documents: