Something to be proud of ...

All politicians want to make a difference; I'm delighted to say that in Housing we have made one very tangible change. Before the SNP took over in Dundee, the Council let houses which were dirty and in poor condition. That's what the Scottish Housing Regulator said, and many of us knew this to be true.

Now we let houses which are clean, in good decorative order, safe and with everything working. The difference is tremendous. Where necessary, we redecorate with lining paper and magnolia paint. It means new tenants have a blank canvas which they can change to suit their own taste. To make this happen we have had to re-engineer the way we repair and relet houses; doing this simple thing proved more complex than many of us imagined.

The next goal is to reduce the time we take to relet houses. Currently this takes months when it should take weeks. We're working on it and I expect to report more progress soon.

Currently the Council is consulting tenants about the proposed rent increase for next year. The options are 4.5%, 4.75% or 5%. The difference between the options is the time we take to do external maintenance like painting front doors and closes and gutter repairs.

Why do we need to raise rents by this much? The answer is our legal obligation to bring our houses up to the very basic Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015. That means new kitchens, bathrooms, roofs, heating systems and other work for many of our properties. The whole thing will cost upwards of £90 million between now and then.

We have to borrow this money and pay it back out of the rents. At least the new heating systems will help tenants save some money, especially those who have old fashioned electric storage heaters.

The Housing Department is looking for efficiencies and has reduced staff costs by more than £400,000 per year. By improving the way we work we hope to find even more savings, all of which will help keep rent increases down.

No-one pretends the rent increase will be popular, but at least the quality of council housing in Dundee is increasing significantly and the new kitchens, bathrooms and heating systems are proving very welcome.