Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Councillors Boyd, Mathur, and Wren. The Portfolio Holder for Housing, Councillor Hartnett, had also submitted his apologies.

To invite Councillors to declare any Disclosable Pecuniary Interests and / or Other Disclosable Interests they may have in items on the agenda, and to confirm the nature of those interests, and any Party Whip.

There were no declarations of interest nor of party whip.

The minutes of the meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Committee which took place on 12 January 2026 will be considered at this meeting.

The minutes of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting held on 12^th January 2026 were submitted for Members’ consideration.

RESOLVED that

The minutes of the meeting of Overview and Scrutiny Committee held on 12^th January 2026 be approved as a true and correct record and signed by the Chair.

To invite members of the public who have registered in advance of the meeting to speak to the Committee.

There were no public speakers registered to speak at this meeting.

a)          Budget Scrutiny Working Group – Chair, Councillor Warhurst

b)          Performance Scrutiny Working Group – Chair, Councillor Warhurst

c)           Post-16 Education Task Group – Chair, Councillor Warhurst

[With agreement of the Committee, agenda item 12 - Task Groups, Short Sharp Reviews and Working Groups - Update Reports – was considered at this point in the meeting (after agenda item 4 – Public Speaking)].

The Working Group and Task Group updates were provided as follows:

a)    Budget Scrutiny Working Group

Councillor Warhurst reported that the Group was due to meet on Friday 20^th February 2026. An interim Budget update would also be provided at this meeting. An update on the Council’s Budget position was subsequently provided by the Assistant Director for Finance and Customer Services.

It was noted that the Council’s Medium Term Financial Plan (MTFP) position as reported in the MTFP 2026/27 to 2028/29 at the Executive Committee meeting on 13^th January 2026 was an overspend of £345,000 for 2026/27, an underspend of £55,000 in 2027/28, and an underspend of £85,000 in 2028/29. Members were informed that there had been a number of movements since and the updated position on MTFP as of this meeting was that of an £177,000 underspend in 2026/27, £224,000 underspend in 2027/28, and £686,000 underspend in 2028/29.

It was explained that this updated MTFP position was due to a number of factors. For this financial year the budgeted gap of £1,062 million had been managed down through work around vacancy provision. In addition, there had been changes to the Council’s calculation of business rates appeals and loses in line with Government’s recommended practice and changes to assumptions on Members’ allowances reducing costs. An additional Council Tax growth had been built for 2027/28 as 180 properties would be added in the Borough and there were assumptions of Council Tax increases of 2.99% for 2027/28 and 2028/29. It was reported that the three-year final local government finance settlement for 2026/27 to 2028/29 had not resulted in significant movements to the Council’s budget position compared to previous assumptions.

The Assistant Director Finance and Customer Services highlighted that the key risks within the budget around the vacancy figure saving built into the budget following the establishment review, the inflation assumptions around areas such as Council’s contracts, and the delivery of £250,000 of savings across service areas as the savings targets had not been delivered by all service areas. It was highlighted that capital financing available to the Council at present was also restricted at £1.1 million compared to £1.6 million submitted in capital funding bids by the service areas and Rubicon.

In addition there were challenges in terms of the impact of local government reorganisation (LGR) on the Council’s revenue, sustainability constraints, and the need to deliver projects requested by elected members before the unitary local government structure is due to come into effect in April 2028.

To address these challenges, it was explained by the Assistant Director Finance and Customer Services that the review of reserves had been carried out and following this it had been proposed to create the following Reserves:

·       Risk Reserve of £2.5 million

·       Local Government Reorganisation Reserve of £500,000  ...  view the full minutes text for item 73.

An update was provided on the Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) including the reminder of the current timetable for LGR and the work that had been undertaken already in preparation for LGR and the future work arrangements.

It was recapped that five district authorities in Worcestershire: Redditch Borough, Bromsgrove District, Malvern Hills, Worcester City, and Wychavon had submitted a joint proposal to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) titled Transforming Worcestershire advocating for the North/South two unitary option in Worcestershire. The other proposal that was submitted by Worcestershire County Council and Wyre Forest District Council was advocating a single unitary authority for Worcestershire. The Government’s statutory consultation on these proposals was expected to launch shortly and following these the Government would be considering the proposals and was expected to make its decision before the summer recess in July 2026.

The Executive Director reported that following a successful system wide workshop on the 7^th of January 2026 with Chief Executives, Monitoring Officers, Transformation leads and Section 151 Finance Officers from every authority in Worcestershire, the Councils had established interim governance for preparatory pre-decision activity in regard to LGR from January 2026 until receipt of a decision from MHCLG before the summer recess in July 2026. A monthly LGR Programme Board had been established with Chief Executives from the seven authorities as core members. This board will report to Members via the cross-county Leaders Board as necessary.

There were five key workstreams as part of this preparations phase and senior officers from Redditch and Bromsgrove Councils were the Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) in respect of two of the workstreams – on Programme Management and Service Delivery.

Following the presentation of the report, it was commented that part of the rationale for the Council allocating a £500,000 per year LGR reserve was to support the transformation and allow officers to charge any costs associated with LGR transformation work to the reserve created. It was further commented by Members that there would be resource issues associated that would be increasing as the LGR progressed that would need to be considered and planned for.

RESOLVED that

1)    the progress to date in submitting an application to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for a two-unitary model titled, ‘Transforming Worcestershire’, be noted.

2)    the governance that has been established for Local Government Reorganisation in Worcestershire and the next steps outlined in this paper be noted.

This report will follow in supplementary papers after it has been published for the meeting of Executive Committee (due for publication on Friday 13 February 2026).

A Quarter 3 update on the Housing Improvement Plan was provided for Members’ consideration. A summary of progress against each of the Consumer Standards was presented within the report and some of the Consumer Standards metrics were highlighted within the presentation for this item.

The overall progress was that 15 actions within the Housing Improvement Plan had been completed within Quarter 3 of 2025/26 compared to 6 completed actions at Quarter 2. 9 of the actions completed at Quarter 3 were denoted as green-rated.

On the overdue repairs and maintenance jobs, it was reported that since the Regulatory Judgment, the number of overdue jobs had reduced from circa 3,000 to 1,047 at the end of Quarter 3.

In terms of overdue fire safety remedial actions, it was explained by Officers that there would be a proposal within the budget to provide additional funding to finance fire door/compartmentation works and accelerate the programme.

In terms of engagement with the tenants, new communications strategy was currently being drafted and a draft engagement policy was being worked on and was expected to be presented before the Overview and Scrutiny and Executive Committees in June 2026. This year’s Tenant Satisfaction Survey was reported to have achieved 887 responses which was a 35 per cent increase on last year’s response rate. It was expected that the Civica Cx Tenants Portal would go live in April 2026.

To strengthen staff resourcing, following a review, a Senior Complaints Officer had been recruited, starting in December 2025, and the post of a Complaints Officer would be recruited to in Q4 2025/26.

For anti-social behaviour (ASB), there was one outstanding item relating to the implementation of an ASB module on the Housing Management Software, which was to provide greater consistency and performance in monitoring of cases.

A Member commented that the report appeared to indicate that issues with software systems for housing management and for repairs and maintenance were among the main reasons preventing the Council from addressing the backlog in repairs and issues around tenants portal and housing management.

The Assistant Director Environmental and Housing Property Services clarified that the Civica Housing Management System was operating correctly and the use of the system by the Council had evolved as Officers learned and utilised more modules on the system. In contrast, there had been issues experienced with the Total Mobile repairs and maintenance system with the project being behind schedule. To address the problems experienced, the Council’s Officers met with Total Mobile representatives, and a project team had been formed to work on resolving these problems.

It was highlighted that the Total Mobile project implementation suffered from issues such as initial consultant assigned to work with the Council not being able to effectively resolve the issues that the Council experienced with the system as well as previous issues with capacity in the Housing Team hampering the project. The focus remained on staff members being trained to feel confident in using the system before it would be rolled out and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 75.

This report will follow in supplementary papers after it has been published for the meeting of Executive Committee (due for publication on Friday 13 February 2026).

The Assistant Director of Environmental and Housing Property Services presented the Housing Consumer Standards Report for Quarter 3 2025/26 The report detailed the Council’s performance in relation to 10 of the Regulator of Social Housing tenant satisfaction measures.

It was reported that there had been some improvement compared to Quarter 2 in respect of the Homes that Do Not Meet the Decent Homes Standards measure. The current non-decency percentage (i.e. housing stock properties which did not meet the Decent Homes Standard) was 10.95 per cent, which was a decrease from a figure of 11.90 per cent at Quarter 2.

For non-emergency and emergency repairs completed within the landlord’s target timescale, it was noted that there had been a plateau in performance over Quarter 3. In terms of outstanding repairs, an example was given in terms of 40 outstanding fencing jobs. Work was ongoing to assess the shortfall in performance against the priority codes and to ensure that accurate and timely closure of jobs was completed on the system.

Most measures under maintaining building safety showed 100 per cent compliance with issues experienced in electrical test of communal areas (EI02) where the performance had fallen below target due to two electrical inspection certificates having yet to be received from the contractor. The Council had also experienced resource issues in the area of electrical compliance through this quarter with the Electrical Compliance Manager leaving in September 2025 and the Council being unable to recruit into this position either on a permanent or temporary basis. In the interim, corrective actions were identified through the contractor carrying out the inspections.

The complaints performance was discussed and it was noted that at Quarter 3 there had been more complaints received, largely due to seasonal issue with wetter weather resulting in more issues such as leaks. 80 per cent of complaints received over Quarter 3 related to repairs and maintenance.

In terms of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB), it was reported that at Quarter 3, 55 new ASB cases were started and 56 cases were closed within the period. The team were managing 65 live ASB cases as of report writing. It was highlighted that there was a year-on-year rise in the number of ASB cases and it was thought that several factors contributed to this increase, such as the continued cost of living crisis and the impact of this on people’s mental health and general wellbeing as well as the year-on-year improvements in the Council’s recording and capturing of incidents of ASB/Nuisance and Hate Crime.

It was highlighted that with the new Neighbourhood and Tenancy Team structure coming into place and expected to be fully staffed by March 2026, a further rise in ASB cases as all local areas in the Borough would be covered by a Neighbourhood and Tenancy Officer. However, to provide more prevention support, there would also be an increase in the numbers in the Tenancy Sustainment Team which should stop many cases from escalating to enforcement.

Following the presentation of the report, there  ...  view the full minutes text for item 76.

This report will follow in supplementary papers after it has been published for the meeting of Executive Committee (due for publication on Friday 13 February 2026).

The report in respect of the Repairs & Maintenance Policy and the Damp & Mould Policy was presented to Committee. It was noted that these policies, subject to consideration at this Overview and Scrutiny meeting, recommendation by Executive Committee and approval by Full Council, would cover all Council house tenants regardless of tenancy type.

It was highlighted that in the Repairs and Maintenance and Damp and Mould Policies, the Council planned to introduce a new timescale for completion of larger works (titled Planned Maintenance Repair) where the target time for completion would be up to 60 working days. This would be for works which could not wait to be completed as part of the investment works programme and would be dealt with on a programmed repairs basis.

Following the presentation, Members discussed several matters in relation to the report and the Policies:

·       Communication with the tenants regarding the Repairs and Maintenance and the Damp and Mould Policies – It was reported that these new policies would be communicated to residents through the Council’s website, which would be updated once these Policies are approved, and detail would also be included in the Housing Annual Report which is sent to all tenants in printed form.

·       Advice on mould and damp – It was remarked that more reliable information and education on the need to appropriately ventilate properties to prevent damp and mould was needed, including through modernising the Council’s website and offering more responsive advice so that information was quickly available to the tenants.

·       Need for professional information on damp and mould prevention – Members discussed the need for a better, more targeted communication from the Council around damp and mould prevention. It was commented that it was important to provide messaging and advice to challenge perceptions, such as to opinions that actions to eliminate damp/mould such as keeping heating at higher temperature and ventilating homes regularly would lead to more expensive and unaffordable energy bills.

·       Officers explained that work with the third sector around provision of advice and support was important as was work of the Housing Tenancy Team to ensure tenants who needed financial support were claiming the correct benefits for example.

·       Overcrowding and rehousing of tenants in cases of damp and mould issues that could not be resolved – It was explained that overcrowding did not lead in itself to damp and mould issues, however, because the property was overcrowded this could lead to other issues that in turn led to damp and mould. It was noted that provision of alternative properties or temporary housing was dependent on the turnaround in the void properties that the Council had; however, in cases where no resolution to issues with serious damp and mould could be found and there were no void properties available, then temporary accommodation would be provided for tenants in the property affected. If the property could not be brought up to acceptable standard, the tenants affected would also be put on the appropriate priority council house waiting list banding so  ...  view the full minutes text for item 77.

To consider the draft Annual Report of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

The Chair presented the draft Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report 2025-26 for consideration by Committee Members. The final report would be presented to the Full Council meeting on 2^nd March 2026.

RESOLVED that

the draft Overview and Scrutiny Annual Report 2025-26 be approved.

The Executive Committee Work Programme was submitted for Members’ consideration. It was noted that an update on environmental enforcement from Worcestershire Regulatory Services (WRS) would be provided at the next meeting of Overview and Scrutiny (16^th March) in addition to the scrutiny of the two Executive reports by WRS that were added to the Overview and Scrutiny work programme previously.

RESOLVED that

the Executive Committee’s Work Programme be noted.

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee Work Programme was submitted for Members’ consideration.

RESOLVED that

the Overview and Scrutiny Work Programme be noted.

a)          West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Overview and Scrutiny Committee – Council Representative, Councillor Boyd;

b)          West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny Committee – Council Representative, Councillor Fardoe; and

c)           Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) – Council Representative, Councillor Fry.

Updates on the meetings of External Scrutiny Bodies were provided as follows:

a)    West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Overview and Scrutiny Committee

As Councillor Boyd submitted his apologies for this meeting, there was no update on this external scrutiny body.

b)    West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny

Councillor Fardoe reported that he had submitted his apologies at the last meeting of the Transport Delivery Overview and Scrutiny.

c)     Worcestershire Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC)

Councillor Fry reported that there were recent postponements and cancellations to meetings of this Committee and there was currently a busy work programme with the most recent meeting taking place on 11^th February 2026 at which annual review of Public Health and overview from the West Midlands Ambulance Service were considered.

Councillor Fry reported a concern with the number of vacancies on the HOSC. There were currently three vacancies on the HOSC all of which were from Worcestershire County Council elected members.

RESOLVED that

the External Scrutiny Bodies updates be noted.