Agenda and minutes

1  To highlight reports or appendices which officers have identified as containing exempt information, and where officers consider that the public interest in maintaining the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information, for the reasons outlined in the report.

2  To consider whether or not to accept the officers recommendation in respect of the above information.

3  If so, to formally pass the following resolution:-

RESOLVED – That the press and public be excluded from the meeting during consideration of the following parts of the agenda designated as containing exempt information on the grounds that it is likely, in view of the nature of the business to be transacted or the nature of the proceedings, that if members of the press and public were present there would be disclosure to them of exempt information, as follows:

   No exempt items have been identified.

No items.

To identify items which have been admitted to the agenda by the Chair for consideration.

(The special circumstances shall be specified in the minutes.)

There were no late items.

To receive any apologies for absence.

Received from John Gittos.

To confirm as a correct record, the minutes of the meeting held on 31^st August 2016.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the meeting held on 31^st August 2016 be approved as a correct record.

To receive an update from the Chair on scrutiny activity, not specifically included on this agenda, since the previous Board meeting.

The Chair has held a meetings with Sharon Guy to plan today’s meeting and the associated agenda.

The Chair discussed the recent walkabout at John O’Gaunts which was done as part of the follow up to the previous inquiry.

The Chair noted that there is a sub-group of the board which will be holding their first meeting Friday 30^th September at Navigation House to look at the Lettings Standard. They will be speaking with the Voids Manager and then have further meetings as part of the inquiry.

The Chair noted to the Board that Peter Marrington had now retired from the Council and offered their best wishes for the future to him.

As part of the East Leeds Repairs Service inquiry, Tenant Scrutiny Board  requested attendance of a Repairs Manager to attend today’s meeting to provide an overview in relation to the management of the repairs service in East Leeds.

Members will have the opportunity to ask questions about the briefing to the Repairs Manager.

The Chair introduced this item and guest speaker, Simon Jarman who was in attendance for this item.

Simon gave an update on his responsibilities in relation to responsive repairs for East at Leeds Building Services (LBS).  Simon deals with day to day repairs, performance, site visits, and complaints.  He is currently working on the performance of LBS and recently instigated special measures to look at the current performance which have now been put in place.

Simon spoke about the recent presentation to staff on the findings and provided a copy to the group.

Simon talked about the importance of tenants coming first. He spoke about the problems with the Orchard Direct Works system. only 30 out of 80 working on PDAS and  current work is taken from timesheets.  Recording systems are also a problem. Simon also e explained there are failures around inputting data onto the system. 

Questions raised by the group:

Q Will the new system (Total Repairs) link to the Contact Centre, or will it be a separate system.

A The Contact Centre use Orchard and once the order has been raised on Orchard it will be compatible and the order will appear on the Total Repair system.  Working with Kirklees currently to iron out any problems they are currently facing.  Contact Centre will be able to look at a glance on the new system where the job is currently at.  Simon offered an invite to the group to view Total Repairs to see how it works.

Q  TSB have heard from Simon and Tony about the problems with the IT system. Is this masking a real problem with the staff?

A  There may be some issues with staff, bricklayers, supervisors need to do paperwork.  We would like the supervisors to be out on site with them.  We are aware of operatives who start late, leave early.  We are working towards tackling this in one-2-ones.  We have a lot of hardworking staff but like any other organisation some staff …

Q TSB have heard stories about operatives being out and the supervisors not supervising.

A We have a full team of technical officers based at Navigation House who merge between the organisations, some staff have dual roles. There have been discussions about a split so that supervisors can be out on the estates with the operatives.  There are shared frustrations about the processes and we are in talks to find a solution.

  Budget allocation for the three areas South, East, West.  Are they the same for each area?  If not why is there a difference?

There is still a bit of a divide, due to the former ALMOs.  We are trying to bridge the differences as East were in house and South and West staff worked with contractors.  There are three areas, South and West work with the Mears contract.  There are better working patterns having staff under one roof.

  Can you give us the background as to why East Leeds repairs was done in house and not  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14.

The purpose ofthis report is to highlight the work programme for the 2016/17 municipal year to Board Members

The Chair asked the group to look at the Work Programme for 2016/17 and suggested that because Simon had offered for members to visit Leeds Building Service, the programme can be looked at then. Because there are two visits coming up, it was suggested that TSB members names were chosen randomly to attend the visits.

RESOLVED Sharon to find dates for visits, names will then be chosen randomly in October to decide.

RESOLVED The draft work programme was agreed.

The purpose ofthis report is to seek agreement to share contact details of members between the other members of the Tenant Scrutiny Board.

The Chair explained that details would be shared between the board members, including telephone numbers and email numbers if appropriate.  This will not be shared with anyone else.

RESOLVED That Board members details would be shared with the exception of JW who agreed that only her email would be shared, not her mobile number.

Wednesday 26^th October 2016 at 1:30pm

(pre meeting for all Board Members at 1:00pm)

Wednesday 26^th October 2016 at 1:30pm (pre meeting for all Board

Members at 1:00pm)