Agenda and decisions

City Issues Briefing - Wednesday, 20 February 2019 9.00 am

Venue: Salford Civic Centre, Chorley Road, Swinton

Items

No.

Item

Apologies for Absence

Declarations of Interest

Items for Decision - Part 1 -

Pendleton Together Rent and Service Charge 2019/20 PDF 131 KB

Additional documents:

Appendix 1 , item 3a PDF 22 KB

Decision:

Executive Decision

Urgent Executive Decision

Request to a Scrutiny Chair that an Urgent Executive Decision be made ~~without being~~ ~~published in the Forward Plan, and / or that~~ and the Executive Decision be exempt from Call-In for Scrutiny

Decision maker	City Mayor following consultation with Cabinet
Nature of the decision	Pendleton Together Rent and Service Charges 2019/20
Non-confidential reports Can be made available to the public	Report published on 12^th February 2019
Confidential reports Containing confidential or exempt information
Reason for confidentiality
Intended date of decision	20^th February 2019
Officer contact details For any further information	Name: Tel: Email:	Joanne Hardman 0161 793 3156 Joanne.hardman@salford.gov.uk
Has the decision been published in a Forward Plan?	Yes
Reasons for special urgency such that this cannot be published in a Forward Plan
Is exemption from call-in for scrutiny needed?	Yes
Advice as to how any delay will seriously prejudice the legal or financial position of the Council	Call in is due to end on 27^th February 2019 which is the same date as the Council’s budget setting meeting. The inability to approve the rent and service charge changes as part of the Council’s budget report would mean that tenants would have insufficient notice of changes to rents and service charges and proposed changes would not be implemented from the start of the financial year.
Scrutiny Chair Who has agreed the decision is reasonable and urgent	Name:	Councillor Jolley
	Signed:	Councillor Jolley
	Date:	18^th February 2019.

Request prepared by:

Joanne Hardman

Salford City Council - Record of Decision

I, Paul Dennett, City Mayor, in exercise of the powers contained within the City Council constitution, do hereby approve;-

An increase of 3.4% for rents in 2019/20 for housing stock owned by the City Council. The same level increase to be applied to garage rents and caravan site fees.

Adjustments to service charges to reflect the actual cost of providing those services.

The reasons are: The 3.4% increase in rental charges is based upon the CPI inflation measure at September 2018 plus 1%, reflecting the government’s rent setting methodology. It should be noted that homes included in PFI schemes are excluded from the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 which applies to other registered providers within the local area. Additional rental income will meet the costs included within the HRA business plan which must be balanced on a 30 year basis. These include inflationary increases associated with the PFI scheme. The resulting rents are below Local housing allowance rates which is used to calculate entitlement to housing benefit.

Service charges have been adjusted to reflect the actual costs of services and will vary from block to block depending upon services received.

The table below shows the average rental charge combined with the average service charges per block to show the average variation across blocks.

Average rent and service charge increase

	Average	Average
	Charge	Charge	Variation	Variation
	2018/19	2019/20
	£	£	£	%

High Rise	104.16	108.04	3.88	3.7

Low Rise	84.14 ... view the full decision text for item 3a

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