COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF TALLAGHT AREA COMMITTEE (1)

Monday, September 21, 2009

MOTION NO. 1

MOTION: Councillor S. Crowe

Cathaoirleachs Business

This Committee calls on the manager to give a report in view of the financial difficulties being experienced by the Council on how it is directly affecting the turn over of boarded up houses,transfers and allocations in the Tallaght area and how he proposes to deal with these diffficulties.

REPORT:

REPORT:

The Council has 8963 properties under its control.  121 (1.35%) of them are vacant   This compares very favourably with the national average of  4% vacancy.   The average turnaround time for a vacant house is 13 weeks which is an improvement over the year from 17 weeks in January.  

During the first two weeks of September Allocations Section awarded 7 new Tenancies and 8 dwellings were surrendered for the same period.    This year  a total of 404 new tenancies  have been allocated to date  

There are 630 tenants on a transfer list and to date this year we have only been in a position to allocate transfers on a priority basis for Medial or Anti Social or Compassionate or overcrowding grounds. 78 we transferred up to the end of August on this basis.  We have an additional 37 priority applications which we will endeavour to allocate this year if they qualify following investigations of their rent account, Anti Social/ Garda Check and a condition of house inspection.

Re-let repairs occur when a rented house becomes vacant and needs repairs to be carried out before it can be handed over to the next tenant.  Re-let repairs are carried out by a combination of direct labour and works assigned to contractors.

Relets: 2007    2008    2009 (to September)

            159      182      160 

The Housing re-let programme is a complex area which incorporates the Allocations, Estate Management, Anti Social and Tenant Liaison as well as Maintenance / Depot.  Generally speaking the houses handed back are in bad condition.  Apart from the physical work to be done to the houses there are often difficulties in allocating some of these houses because of their location and the unwillingness of applicants in receipt of Rent Supplement to move.  Also when the work is complete there is a need to obtain a BER cert for the property before it can be let.  These aspects need to be taken into account when reviewing turnaround time.

Housing maintenance is responsible for managing and maintaining the councils rented housing stock. There are two depots from which direct labour maintenance repairs are carried out, one in Jobstown, Tallaght, the other in Unit 10 Crag Avenue Clondalkin.  Maintenance section received 22,964 Maintenance Request Forms (MRF) in 2008.  22,455 or 98% of them were completed.  The average number received per month was 1940.

This year there was a need to achieve resource savings which included a complete elimination of overtime.  A Cost Benefit Analysis is needed to appraise the cost effectiveness of the current process and compare with alternatives.  Key to this is an efficiency appraisal to establish and achieve positive outcomes and more efficient use of existing resources as well as the need to dedicate staff to response maintenance.   A Business Process Investigation has been completed and revised procedures put in place to address the areas where inefficiencies were identified.