In office at last
The last post on this very neglected blog was before the SNP took over the Administration of Dundee City Council. I'm now Convener of Housing, Dundee Contract Services and Environmental Services. Being this busy meant I had to stand down as Convener of the Dundee Sirolli Project, now known as Clocking Onto Business.
What do I want to do with my new Convenership? I want to offer people council houses in move in condition. I want to get relets done much faster. I want to find a way to ensure that we don't let houses to people who will make their neighbours' lives a misery. And I want to see our houses brought up to the Scottish Housing Quality Standard.
I'd also like to build new council houses, and that will be happening soon. But I am still not convinced that we have a "surplus" of public service housing (ie council and housing association houses) in Dundee, no matter what the experts tell us. I'm looking forward to receiving reports from the Housing Department on the costs and benefits of keeping houses in Derby Street which currently scheduled for demolition.
I have ambitions for the other Departments overseen by the Housing, DCS and Environmental Services Committee. More on those later ...
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Rent increase
Last night's Housing Committee meeting increased council house rents by 5.9%. This is a very big increase at a time when inflation is dropping towards 2%.
The Labour/Lib Dem Administration had originally proposed a much higher increase of 7%; I had an increase of 5% in mind; in the end 5.9% was an acceptable compromise.
There are a number of reasons why we need to increase our rents so much. The first is that previous Labour/Lib Dem administrations have saddled us with £125 million in housing debt. 34p of every pound paid in rent goes to pay interest on that debt. Yet we are demolishing schemes such as Maxwelltown where huge amounts of cash were spent just a few years ago.
The second is that we need to improve our houses to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard. This is pretty basic and it's not to the Council's credit that we have to spend so much to bring our council houses up to scratch.
The third is that we're clearing various multi storey developments. Many of the tenants are going to housing association properties, so we lose their rents. We are also losing houses through the Right to Buy ... although we get some money in from sales, the rent is lost for ever.
Finally, we could be more efficient. It takes us 68 days to relet one of our more popular houses, and 80 days for less popular houses. Why does it take so long? If we could improve our performance here by just one week, we'd bring in an extra £70,000 in rent.
We supported the 5.9% increase reluctantly. But if and when the SNP becomes Dundee's administration, reletting houses much more swiftlywill be one of our first priorities.
The Labour/Lib Dem Administration had originally proposed a much higher increase of 7%; I had an increase of 5% in mind; in the end 5.9% was an acceptable compromise.
There are a number of reasons why we need to increase our rents so much. The first is that previous Labour/Lib Dem administrations have saddled us with £125 million in housing debt. 34p of every pound paid in rent goes to pay interest on that debt. Yet we are demolishing schemes such as Maxwelltown where huge amounts of cash were spent just a few years ago.
The second is that we need to improve our houses to meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard. This is pretty basic and it's not to the Council's credit that we have to spend so much to bring our council houses up to scratch.
The third is that we're clearing various multi storey developments. Many of the tenants are going to housing association properties, so we lose their rents. We are also losing houses through the Right to Buy ... although we get some money in from sales, the rent is lost for ever.
Finally, we could be more efficient. It takes us 68 days to relet one of our more popular houses, and 80 days for less popular houses. Why does it take so long? If we could improve our performance here by just one week, we'd bring in an extra £70,000 in rent.
We supported the 5.9% increase reluctantly. But if and when the SNP becomes Dundee's administration, reletting houses much more swiftlywill be one of our first priorities.
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