Falcon Meeting Minutes – March 2017
Falcon Members Present:
JE – Julie Eade / DE – David EdwardsSM – Stephen May / JS – John Smith
DS – David Sheahan / LC – Leyla Cabdalla
NH- Nick Hanks / SB – Sultan Bhatia
Raven Staff Present:
SC – Shuna China, Resident Involvement Manager
MT – Group Director of Finance
JH – Head of Property
MR – Estate Services & Voids Manager
Board Member Present:
Ashley Horsey
1 / Welcome and apologies / ActionsJE welcomed everyone to the meeting.
Still trying to contact BW as no contact has been made by him.
2 / Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
2.1 / Minutes were approved and happy with the updates sent in advance.
AC087 – Criteria of jobs which are recorded on repairs
The job criteria is the same as to what you find in Housemark, for the service we provide.
The 24 priority are the emergency repairs – those which have a health & safety issue or major impact on the resident
28 day priority – repairs which require to be fixed, but don’t have an immediate impact on the resident
Planned – these are repairs which include upgrades such as fencing, brickwork, pointing repairs, cladding etc. The number of days for this is 365 days for the jobs, but it is not restricted the same as asset planned work which is why the average number of days are low because the jobs can get done quicker. This is an average of all these planned jobs, so some will be longer.
All priority – this is the average number of days of all 3 area of jobs
AC088 – Investigate what the reasons are for lower satisfaction with their neighbourhood.
I propose that Falcon should monitor this over a period of time to see if any particular trends appear. Similar to what you did for Labour Turnover. I will pull together what the issues are from the raw data of Explain.
AC089 – Feedback on any particular service areas you feel should be included in the audit program or the scrutiny reviews.
Please let me know of any suggestions you would like put forward to be covered in a scrutiny review, in particular what specific part of the service you feel needs focus on. You will need to evidence how this area has been triggered for review
3. / Performance Information & Explain Summary
3.1 / The group went through the performance information provided.
Good to see that performance is looking good, but will continue to monitor the satisfaction with neighbourhoods.
4 / Value for Money Strategy
4.1 / A presentation was given by MT on the proposed changes to the VFM Strategy and the different approach.
The rents cuts made by the government forced HA to make sure they were running efficiently. The HCA criteria focussed on the best use of assets.
The old VFM strategy was set by this criteria but had no real aspirations for the business.
The HCA introduced the ‘Overall Social Housing Cost per unit’ as a new measure for HA, but recognised that there would be variations amongst HA dependent on how they operate. The focus was not a league table but for HA to see where they sat amongst others and for the board to be aware why they sit where they are.
4.2 / The proposals being put forward for what the new strategy should consist of are:
- Maximising assets – making the most of all the properties we have got
- Efficient design – removing waste from our processes
- Increase efficiency in procurement
- Growing a diversified portfolio
If more HA become more efficient then their surpluses will go up – the debate is what do you do with the surplus?
The challenge to the board is being clear on what they will do with the surplus.
Some additional measures being proposed are:
- Customer satisfaction, and
- Community Investment return
Falcon agreed that the additional measures should be included. The request from Falcon was to know what KPI’s will be used to measure customer satisfaction. Falcon would like these measure to go back to them. AC090
5. / Grounds Maintenance
5.1 / The current contract will be coming to the end of its term by the end of the year. This allows us to re-think about the contract and what we would like to offer.
For the meeting the group were asked to go through the options thinking about whether we should:
- Stay as we are
- Consider the options proposed
- Pro’s & Con’s of the options
Option 1 – looks at staying as we are
Option 2 & Option 3 would incur savings
Option 4 – would increase the contract by £55k - £90k
There was suggestion put forward that the first and last cut would be collected because this is when the grass is normally longer and causes the grassed areas to look untidy.
Falcon felt that the Wildflower Meadows were a good idea for particular areas, but not to be done directly outside houses. Fruit trees were good also.
Need to involve the residents who would be affected by the service charges either up or down and find out their views. AC091
Ensure the areas being proposed are suitable for meadows or cut grass dependent on how the residents use them i.e don’t do a meadow when children play football.
LC raised whether there have been discussions around plots of land next to each other which are owned by Raven and RBBC. Could these not be combined and maintained together. Talks are currently taken place and work is being done on how we can make the areas more efficient.
6. / Business Plan & Sensitivity Scenarios
6.1 / MT went through the changes to the business plan paper which summarised the assumptions being put forward for the plan.
The pressure from the government to deliver significantly more housing and Raven’s key objective of providing more hoes in the communities will included in the business plan. The ‘investment object’ will be included in the plan, which covers the on-lending for our outright sale developments.
Some of the proposed assumptions:
- Provision for salary costs
- Sources assumptions of inflation, rent increase, CPI, RPI, bad debts, voids. . .
- The proposed development mix
- Sensitivity tests
- Stress testing
The questions was raised about the properties built for sale, if the market crashed what would raven do. MT explained that one of the stress testing scenarios would be to change these to rented properties. Future developments would be stopped in there was a change in the market. The recovery would be to cut back on the development program.
The Board will be looking at whether Raven can go out and land bank for future developments.
7. / AOB
Due to the Easter Holidays and other meetings booked, the next Falcon meeting has been moved from 19th April to the 26th April.
SC handed to the group the Customer Insight briefing paper and asked all members to take away and feedback on the questions being asked.
SC asked the group what performance information they want available to the wider resident ensuring they are accountable, to replace the old Local Offers before further consultation takes place. They felt the Falcon dashboard was a priority for residents and also where possible to Board & LT dashboards they monitor to be available to the resident. AC092
8. / Date of next meeting:
8.1 / The next meeting is on Wednesday 26th April 2017, 6.30pm pre meet, 7pm start of meeting
Future dates for the year:
14th June
19th July
20th September
25th October
22nd November
Board dates for the year:
21st March - JE
10th May – DE & JS
4th July - DS
6th September - SB
8th November - LC
Think about what Board meeting you could attend
Falcon Action List
Key: P = Pending, O = Ongoing, D = Due next meeting
Action / Detail/Responses / Person in charge / Deadline Date / Action StatusAC090 / Feedback to Falcon what KPI’s will be used to measure customer satisfaction for the VFM Strategy / Mark Thrasher / April 2017
AC091 / For the proposed grounds maintenance service, the residents who would be affected by the service charges either up or down should be consulted to find out their views. / Jo Hills / May 2017
AC092 / Falcon dashboards and Board/LT dashboards to be available for the wider residents to monitor performance on the website. / Jim Snelson / April 2017
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