Caerphilly County Borough Council has hit back over claims the authority is unlikely to meet a national council house improvement deadline.
At its meeting on Wednesday, November 1, cabinet members heard a Wales Audit Office review into the council’s Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) delivery programme.
The WHQS programme will see all council homes brought up to a specific set of standards by 2020, including being well insulated, containing up-to-date interiors, and being located in “safe environments which residents are proud to live in”.
During March and April this year, the Wales Audit Office concluded that the “majority of tenants’ homes remain below the WHQS due to long-standing inefficient and ineffective programme management, and the council is unlikely to achieve the standard by 2020.”
A council report written in response to the review highlighted that while officers accepted the recommendations that further improvements needed to be made, they did not agree with the overall conclusions made and said it did not reflect the programme’s current position.
Cabinet Member for Homes and Places, Cllr Lisa Phipps, said: “The ambitious programme to bring our homes up to the WHQS by 2020 is the largest single project this council has ever undertaken.
“We acknowledge the programme made a slow start, but over recent months the programme has progressed at a significant pace, and the level of satisfaction with the works by our tenants is extremely high. Completing the programme by 2020 is certainly challenging, but is definitely achievable.
“While I thank the Wales Audit Office for their report, and undoubtedly there are things we would change around the programme in retrospect and lessons we can learn for the future, I do feel it doesn’t accurately reflect the programme’s current position.”
The report highlighted that only 2.5% of tenants’ homes met the standard, but the council responded by claiming it adopted an approach where work started simultaneously across numerous communities rather than focussing on completing all work in one at a time.
The authority predicts 75% of internal work and 40% of external work will be completed by March 2018, with 94% and 80% respectively by the following year.
The council’s leader, Cllr Dave Poole, added: “We have an excellent team who are working very hard alongside appointed contractors to deliver this huge programme, which as well as transforming the homes of our tenants, is also working to deliver far reaching community benefits too.
“There is more work to do certainly, but we are confident that this project will be completed by our target date of 2020.