Content

To
authorise the use of up to £310,000 from the Housing Revenue
Account Reserves to fund the engagement of resources from Local
Government East, to address an urgent need to provide capacity
within the Housing Repairs team to meet the Council’s
statutory obligation in relation to the maintenance of Council
Housing Stock.
 
Note: This decision was made on behalf of
the Cabinet by using the special urgency powers contained within
parts 3 and 5.8 of the Council’s consultation, and in
consultation with the Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning,
the Section 151 Officer and the Monitoring Officer.

Reasons for the decision

Regulatory
expectations for housing services have increased, at the same time
as a well?documented national skills shortage
in specialist local government roles, particularly building
surveyors and social housing professionals. This has created a
highly competitive recruitment market affecting councils nationally
and making it increasingly difficult to recruit and retain skilled
staff.
 
Within this
context, two members of the Housing Repairs Service management team
have recently resigned and, together with an existing vacancy, all
three management posts will be vacant by 5 March 2026. Previous
recruitment exercises have failed to attract suitably qualified
candidates, indicating that both the resignations and ongoing
vacancies reflect wider national labour?market pressures.
 
To ensure that
sufficient management resource is available as timely as possible
to ensure the delivery of the housing repairs service.

Alternative options considered

To continue with
the recruitment process, without having a suitable management
structure within the housing repairs team.  Effectively this would maintain the currently
unacceptable risk of a suitable candidate being found within an
unknown timescale, having had two failed recruitment exercises so
far to date.