York Councils profit on housing soars to £4.3 million in one year

Hidden away in the York Council’s accounts is an admission that the 2016/17 in year surplus on its housing revenue account was £4.3 million.

That is much higher than the budgeted figure (£3 million).

Officials continue to parrot familiar justifications for the profit. These include a bogus assumption that the present governments rent reduction formulae will continue (a ploy aimed at reducing the central housing benefit bill) and even mention the now discredited proposal to sell off high value Council houses. The latter was kicked into the long grass even before the Tories suffered their General Election setback.

So, does it matter that the surplus on the housing account is relatively high now standing at £22.7 million?

It certainly does to tenants.

Poor maintenance issues continue to be a problem with no proactive management of communal areas. Too many of our estates are now literally overgrown with routine maintenance programmes having been all but abandoned (although the tenant’s choice modernisation programmes continue to run on schedule)

The report to the Council’s Executive also confirms that there have been delays in updating fire assessment work – an uncomfortable admission after recent events in London and confirmation of what we found when visiting some flats last weekend.

Council housing account surplus in York set to balloon to £21.5 million

The York Council’s Council housing account is set to have a surplus of £21.5 million by the end of March. The housing business plan had shown a planned surplus of £16.6 million at March 2016.

The change partly comes from higher rent income following changes to government rules. Some rents increased by 1% this year while the government have kicked into touch plans to make authorities sell off higher value properties when they became empty.

The York Council is still going through the motions of consulting on transferring its housing stock into the management of a third party. The justification for this move was never strong but, in the light of the recent financial performance of the housing revenue account, is now a waste of time and resources.

The main criticism of the housing department is their insensitivity to maintenance issues particularly when dealing with open spaces and garage areas. They have also failed to keep up with the demand for off street parking facilities. Too often garages remain vacant for excessive periods despite high demand levels.

Hopefully some of the unexpected “profit” on the housing account will allow them to address these concerns.

Use of the suplus would also allow for a “quick fix” for some of the 1600 residents on the housing waiting list if properties were bought on the open market and used to supplement existing stocks.

Council house account makes huge £4.3 million surplus in York

The Housing Revenue Account was budgeted to make a surplus of £2,624k in 2015/16.

A report to a meeting taking place today says the estimates were badly wrong

“There has been an overspend of £639k on repairs and maintenance, mainly due to the use of sub-contractors for high value repairs to resolve damp issues at a number of properties.

Mixed views from tenants on housing services in York

This was offset by a number of underspends in

general maintenance (£72k),
the painting programme (£150k)
decoration allowances (£49k) plus
£178k on utilities,
£436k from delays in capital schemes that are funded from revenue,
£248k lower than budgeted cost of capital,
£107k of additional interest income and
£257k from lower than budgeted levels of arrears and bad debts.

This resulted in an overall surplus of £4,344k and therefore an underspend of £1,720k”.

Tenants area likely to be unhappy.

There have been complaints about poor maintenance standards on some amenity and garage areas while requests for improved car parking provision on many estates are taking an excessive time to process.

The Council needs to tackle these issues quickly now that it has the funds available

Garage areas are neglected in many estates