The Overview and Scrutiny Committee met to discuss the proposed Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030, the Quarter 1 Performance Report, and the Budget Monitoring Report for 2025/26. The committee recommended the adoption of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy to the cabinet. They also requested that the cabinet consider deleting two Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to planning application processing times, pending the introduction of a new government performance system.

Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030

The committee reviewed and recommended the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy (HRSS) 2025-2030 for approval by the cabinet and adoption by the full council. Councillor Ruairi McCourt, Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Housing, introduced the strategy, which aims to prevent homelessness by providing advice and support to residents.

The strategy was developed with support from Shelter, through a service review, and in partnership with Homeless Link, a national homelessness charity. It identifies five key themes:

1. Reducing homelessness via early intervention and prevention
2. Increasing housing accessibility
3. Improving the supply and quality of temporary accommodation (TA)
4. Reducing homelessness and rough sleeping for people with multiple, complex needs
5. Improving the quality and suitability of housing

The strategy was developed following a review of homelessness needs, as required by the Homelessness Act 2002. This review highlighted:

• Increasing homelessness applications, from 216 in 2017/18 to 571 in 2023/24.
• An increase in the need for temporary accommodation.
• A high need for one-bed accommodation.
• A high need for affordable rented accommodation.

A six-week consultation on the draft strategy received 26 responses from individuals and 13 from organisations. The consultation found strong support for all five key themes, with early intervention and prevention identified as the highest priority.

During the discussion, the committee noted that:

• The strategy would be amended to reflect the order of preference identified in the consultation results.
• Work was being undertaken with the Probation Service to source accommodation for individuals leaving prison.
• Residents complete a survey when leaving council-owned temporary accommodation, and this was being rolled out to other TA providers.
• A 'buddy-up' scheme could help alleviate loneliness among older residents living alone in large premises.
• The Renters Rights Bill would help tenants and hopefully reduce homelessness.

Councillors thanked officers for their work in developing the strategy.

Performance Report First Quarter 2025/26

The committee reviewed the Performance Report for the First Quarter of 2025/26, which monitors progress against 22 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) across nine service areas.

The report highlighted areas where performance was either not meeting or exceeding targets:

• Customer Core: 75% of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were answered in 20 days, against a target of 100%. The report noted that performance had dropped due to late responses and issues with the previous manual diary process. Mitigations, including a new management system, were being implemented.
• Environmental Health: 64% of scheduled food inspections were carried out, against a target of 90%. A vacant Senior Environmental Health Officer post had been filled, and performance was expected to improve.
• Planning: The percentage of applications subject to extensions of time was high, with 17% of major applications determined in 13 weeks (target 30%) and 18% of non-major applications determined in 8 weeks (target 60%). The Planning Service was overusing extensions of time due to a backlog of applications awaiting verification. Temporary resources had been put in place, and a permanent officer had been recruited, as well as an upgrade to the IT system.

The Head of Planning advised that two KPIs, P5 and P6, related to planning application processing times, did not align with government metrics and a new planning performance system would be introduced by the government within the coming year.

The committee agreed to recommend to the cabinet that KPIs P5 and P6 be deleted and the position reviewed once the new planning performance system is implemented.

During the discussion, the committee noted that:

• Performance data for the '% of enquiries that are resolved on the first contact with customer services' indicator was unavailable due to telephone system problems, which had now been rectified.
• Three of the planning indicators were more stringent than government metrics, which could lead to more planning applications being refused to meet timescales.
• The Missed Bins KPI was still at a good level.
• It was important to continually review KPIs to ensure they were still fit for purpose.
• £28,000 income had been received through the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices, which had improved levels of detritus across the district.
• The Fly tip fines issued (number) KPI related to instances where evidence of identity could be established.
• No financial implications had been identified for the proposals within the report, but it was still early in the financial year.
• Street cleansing was independently checked three times per year, but was not included in the KPI set.
• The missing result for the Average cost of placing household in temporary accommodation was confirmed as £913 in Q1, but this was slightly misleading due to the way the data was collected.

Budget Monitoring 2025/26, Revenue, Capital & Savings Targets Monitoring - Quarter 1 Update

The committee reviewed the Budget Monitoring Report for Quarter 1 of 2025/26, which provided an update on the revenue and capital budget positions, as well as progress against savings targets.

The report indicated that the revenue budget (Total Cost of Services) was forecast to be £15.966m at year end, compared to the approved budget of £15.716m. This would increase the draw from reserves to £944,000, compared to the agreed budget which anticipated a £694,000 draw from reserves.

Key variances included:

• Forecast reductions in planning application fee income.
• Increased parking income due to good weather over the summer.
• Pressures from consultancy and interim staff costs.
• Voids and repairs within Strategic Asset Management.

The report also noted that £380,000 of savings targets were anticipated to be fully deliverable, £109,000 was identified as undeliverable, and £567,000 was anticipated to be partially deliverable.

The Capital Programme (CP) for 2025/26 and beyond remained under review, with a focus on affordability and minimising the impact on the revenue budget. The total CP was £183m, including prior year spend, with projected spend from 2025/26 through to 2028/29 totalling approximately £115m.

The report highlighted that the council had £5.00m in General Reserves not earmarked for any specific purpose, plus a further £5.54m in Earmarked Reserves. If the revenue outturn was realised, the General Reserve would reduce to £4.056m.

The committee was informed that abortive costs of up to £900,000 may be required to be written off following cabinet decisions on two capital schemes. Additionally, the final valuation for the Hermes Property Fund investment was likely to result in a loss of around £420,000 being written off in year. These factors would bring the forecast General Reserve level to around £2.8m.

During the discussion, the committee noted that:

• A General Reserve level of around £2.8m was very uncomfortable, and a level of around £5m would be more preferable.
• The Local Government Settlement was expected to be announced later in December, and the level of reserves would be assessed at that time.
• Rother District Council had the lowest level of debt in East Sussex and the largest reduction in debt across the country.
• The focus would now be on the highest priorities for the council, and there would be tough decisions to make.
• The budgeted savings identified from Parish Council Website fees had decreased from £7,000 to £5,000 per annum.
• Work was progressing with the Service and Asset Devolution Framework, which would result in cumulative savings to the net revenue budget.
• The council should consider transferring any previously completed surveys on the King Offa site to a future purchaser to generate further revenue.

Work Programme

The committee considered its Work Programme and agreed to hold two meetings per year informally over Microsoft Teams, with the meeting scheduled for 27 April 2026 likely to be held informally.