Five months after Brighton and Hove City Council’s housing department was found to have serious failings, councillors are to receive an update on progress.
The council pledged to spend £15 million to tackle the failings after the damning report from the Regulator of Social Housing in the summer.
Councillors are due to hear what progress has been made in dealing with a backlog of repairs as well as fire, water and electrical safety issues.
The update will be presented to the council’s Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (21 January).
The committee first looked at the issues facing the housing department in September, a month after the regulator said that the council was “failing to ensure that it meets a number of legal requirements in relation to health and safety”.
A “significant backlog” of 8,000 low-risk and low-priority repairs was highlighted in the report and raised repeatedly by residents at housing management panel meetings as well as at the pre-cabinet Housing and New Homes Committee.
Tackling the routine repairs backlog was described as “challenging” in the latest report, despite workers carrying out between 3,000 and 3,500 repairs a month.
A report prepared for the committee said: “Next steps include analysing repair trends, contractor performance, tenant expectations and recurring repair categories to determine factors contributing to the backlog.
“The council will also gather qualitative feedback from tenants and operational teams to pinpoint any systemic issues.
“To address these challenges in the short term, in addition to the two backlog contractors already in place, the council is scaling up contractor capacity, with adjustments planned to meet the July 2025 target for resolving the backlog.
“Strategic initiatives to improve outcomes include focusing on first-time fixes, engaging contractors for specific work streams and putting in place more planned cyclical and preventative maintenance programmes.
“Regular reviews and ongoing staff and tenant engagement will ensure strategies remain responsive and effective.”
By the year end, 8,943 of 19,150 of routine council housing repairs for 2024-25 had been completed within 28 calendar days.
As of November, there was a backlog of 6,578 routine repairs which were awaiting completion after 28 days.
Issues raised at the September meeting included concerns about how 3,600 council homes out of about 12,100 did not have an electrical condition report.
The report said that all council properties should have electrical checks by December next year.
Currently, 80 per cent of homes that require testing every 10 years were covered by November while 66 per cent of five-year tests were completed in the same period.
By the end of November, 94 per cent of council homes had smoke alarm checks.
More than 600 homes required a water risk assessment while 500 were at least three months overdue for water safety repairs and improvements.
The latest report said that 1,700 fire issues identified by the regulator have been incorporated into 8,114 actions from the new set of fire risk assessments.
By the end of 2024, all high-risk council buildings were fire compliant as were 99.1 per cent of “low-risk” homes.
The Place Overview and Scrutiny Committee is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4pm on Tuesday (21 January). The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.