Agenda item

To consider a report of the Assistant Chief Executive, Customer Access and Performance providing the meeting with a summary of the city-wide results from the 2011 Census. The report also highlighted some of the issues emerging from the 2011 Census and advised of future data releases and proposals for analysis.

The Head of Scrutiny and Member Development submitted a report on the  decision of the Executive Board on 15^th February 2013 to refer the census document ‘Leeds:the Big Picture’ to all the Council’s Scrutiny Boards.

The Chief Statutory Housing Officer submitted a briefing paper which evaluated the key strategic housing and policy issues as a consequence of the 2011 Census data. A report by re’new which had been commissioned by the Chief Statutory Housing Officer was also attached which focused on the housing policy implications arising from the census data. The report presented a summary of findings from the 2011 census for Leeds and compared findings to the 2001 census and to the average for England and Wales for 2011. It showed the changes in population characteristics, employment, housing, education and health recorded through the two censuses.

The following representatives were in attendance and responded to Members’ queries and comments:-

-  Councillor P Gruen, Executive Member, Neighbourhoods, Planning and Support Services

-  Liz Cook, Chief Statutory Housing Officer, Environment and Neighbourhoods

-  Mrs Megan Godsell, Housing Policy Manager, Environment and Neighbourhoods

In summary, specific reference was made to a number of issues including:-

·  Clarification of the service level agreement with re’new in relation to  providing this information and why it could not have been done in-house

(The Chief Statutory Housing Officer responded that re’new was best placed to undertake this work because of the deadlines involved)

·  The fact that the increase in demand for all owner occupied housing and rented properties in the last 10 years is 14,128 yet the Government was requiring the Council to provide 70,000 new homes over the next 10 years.

·  Clarification as to why there was a 4,854 difference between  Appendix A 2011 housing tenure (all households) of 315,742 and Appendix B which showed all households at 2011 as being 320,596

(The Housing Policy Manager responded and agreed to investigate this issue further with a report back to the Principal Scrutiny Adviser)

·  Concern at the reliability of the data that had been submitted and the need to qualify some of the results

·  Clarification as to why the Irish population had declined in Leeds

(The Housing Policy Manager responded and agreed to investigate this issue further with a report back to the Principal Scrutiny Adviser)

At the request of the Chair, the Executive Member, Neighbourhoods, Planning and Support Services informed the meeting that 97% to 98% of  the authority’s Council housing met the decency standard whilst only 47% of the private sector did. He stated that he wanted more private landlords to be licensed and to become accredited to the Landlords Association  in order to improve the quality of private sector housing in terms of both physical conditions and management standards.  .

He stated that there would be a report presented shortly to the Executive Board on how the Council might respond to the necessary changes to housing policy as a consequence of the welfare reforms and the results of the 2011 Census.

RESOLVED -That the contents of the report and appendices be noted on

the Housing policy implications arising from the Census data.