Agenda item

DURATION OF MEETING

During the consideration of this item the Council’s attention was drawn to Corporate Procedure Rule 9 – Duration of meeting and the fact the meeting had been underway for nearly three hours. It was therefore:

UNANIMOUSLY RESOLVED that Corporate Procedure Rule 9 be suspended to enable the remaining items on the agenda to be considered.

[NOTE: Councillors, S.J.G. Gilasbey, H.A.L. Evans, having earlier declared an interest in this item, reiterated those declarations and left the meeting during its consideration]

Council was informed that the Cabinet, at its meeting held on the 21^st February, 2022 [minute 7 refers] had considered the Housing Revenue Account Budget 2022/23 to 2024/25 and Housing Rent Setting for 2022/23 and had made a number of recommendations, as detailed within the Director of Corporate Services’ report, for Council’s consideration. It was noted that the report had also been considered, and endorsed, by the Community Scrutiny Committee at its meeting held on the 31^st January 2022 as part of the budget consultation process.

The report had been prepared reflecting the latest proposals contained in the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) Business Plan, being the primary financial planning tool for delivering the Carmarthenshire Homes Standard Plus (CHS+) for the future. 

It was advised that capital investment in the region of £231m had delivered the Carmarthenshire Home Standard for tenants and more recently, up to the end of this financial year a further £83m had been spent on maintaining the CHS+ home standard for properties and tenants.  Over the next 3 years a further £64m was expected to be spent in maintaining and upgrading the housing stock.

The budget alsoprovided funding of some £56m over the next 3 years to maintain the CHS+ and £56m to support the Housing Development Programme.

The Council was reminded that since 2015 the Authority had been required to adopt the Welsh Government Policy for Social Housing Rent Harmonisation, meaning that the proposed rent increase was prescribed by Welsh Government guidance and provided an equitable distribution of the rents for the social sector tenants.  While that policy ended in 2018/19, and an interim policy applied for 2019/20 the Welsh Government had subsequently developed a new policy for implementation in 2020/21 to apply for a period of 5 years from 2020/21 and contained some additional/amended requirements, as detailed within the report. 

The main elements of that policy allowed Local Authorities to uplift the total rent envelope by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) +1% for each of the five years to 2024/25. It also allowed for the level of rent for individual tenants to rise by up to an additional £2 over and above CPI +1% for rent harmonisation, on condition that total rental income collected by the social landlord increased by no more than CPI +1%.

However, it was advised that should the CPI fall outside the range of 0% to 3%, the policy provided for the Minister with responsibility for Housing to determine the appropriate change to rent levels to be applied for that year only.  As CPI was 3.1% in September 2021 this clause had been activated this year and the Government Minister for Climate Change had instructed that the maximum increase in the rent envelope for any local authority should not exceed 3.1%

Furthermore, this current policy would apply until 2024/25 and contained some additional criteria around tenant satisfaction, space standards, minimising evictions and energy efficiency.  The Welsh Government recognises the need to decarbonise social housing stock, which would be a major investment for local Authorities and a priority for this Authority.

The Council was advised that setting the rent within the current Government policy, recognised the need to set the rent at an affordable level for tenants, delivering on the aspirations and trying to ensure the previous commitment to tenants of implementing the harmonisation policy and establishing a fairer rent level for all tenants was a fine balance to achieve.

In response to the priorities and balancing the business plan, the rent increase at an overall increase of 2.9%, would produce an average rent of £94.26 for tenants.

Included within the overall rent increase envelope it was proposed that the Authority continues with the rent progression set at a maximum of £1 for properties below target rent.  This would produce an increase on the average housing rent of £2.66 per week, which is below the Welsh Government maximum increase level and would produce a rent level which would be one of the lowest rent levels set across the eleven housing stock retaining Welsh Authorities.

Furthermore, the report also provided Council with the proposal that the garage rents were maintained at £9.00 per week with no increase and that the Service Charge policy continued to be implemented where the charges are set to cover the additional services that are provided at certain locations and not covered by the rent.

RESOLVED that the following recommendations of the Cabinet be adopted: