Once the situation had been revealed Slough Councillors' has never attempted to disguise the performance problems which exist in the Housing Service. Unfortunately many of these were inherited from the previous Labour administration, under which the Housing Service remained steadily at a one star performance level.

CRISIS?

The dictionary definition of crisis describes it as 'a time of acute difficulty'. Clearly we have experienced difficulties, but our staff have robust improvement plans in place and we are confident that the ALMO can be
launched within the current timescale and achieve the necessary two star
status.

Yes, there were problems, but they were not as bad as the picture that you paint and for the record I would make the following comments:

VOIDS

The worst performance on a monthly basis on voids was in January 2005 when performance dipped to 86 days. This had improved slightly to 75 days by March but interim management arrangements are now in place which are expected to improve performance to 65 days in April, 55 in May and to below 40 days by the end of quarter 1 in June 2005.

There were never 122 properties boarded up. The 122 figure represents all properties in the system, being emptied, repaired and awaiting new tenants. This figure also included long term voids and fire damaged properties which were undergoing major refurbishment. Thanks to the effort of staff no less than 83 of those properties were allocated during the month of March.

There are now only 58 void properties in the system including very new voids vacated this month and we are confident that this number will continue to fall significantly over the next two months.

LOSS OF RENT

The rental loss due to voids for last year was £350,000 or approximately 1.6% of the rental stream.

When the HRA budget was set last year, under the old administration an allowance of up to 2% rent lost through voids was built into the base budget so while this performance is unacceptable, there is no further adverse effect on the HRA.

ALMO LAUNCH DATE

The original go-live date of 1st April was always acknowledged to be a challenging target but while the delay is disappointing it is imperative that the Council gets it right before the ALMO is launched.

Similarly although the £45 million draw down is delayed, this does not impact on our preparation for achieving the decent homes target or delay works to the Council stock, which will be funded initially by existing capital reserve and major Repairs Allowance.

CAPITAL

There does appear to be a spend of £4.9m from an original budget of £6.7m (73%). Additional reporting mechanisms are now in place to ensure that this is improved upon through this financial year.

Finally this is a general misunderstanding regarding the capital allocation for affordable housing. This is not an annual budget: it represents the £6m total sum available for all future developments and will be periodically topped up by S106 funds and capital receipts from the sale of Council assets.

The majority of new affordable homes are secured by means of S106 agreements with private developers, thus although funds are allocated to specific schemes a timetable of actual delivery is not within the control of the Council. It is therefore virtually impossible to accurately programme expenditure into any given financial year.

Additionally, in reflecting sharper business practice officers are negotiating for more affordable housing at less cost to the Council. Thus while expenditure may appear low, additional homes are still being delivered.

It is absolutely critical that we deliver on the ALMO in the best interests of all our tenants, and everyone in the Cabinet and Corporate Management Team is committed to this goal. It does not make the task any easier when the Opposition attempt to engineer a crisis of confidence in the Housing Service. I am afraid I find this question very unhelpful and negative. Questions about our performance in this area are legitimate - and welcome - but please do not undermine the hard work which officers are doing to bring about the changes we all want by this kind of political point scoring.