Minutes:
Question 1
Councillor P Hurst asked a question of the Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder on behalf of Councillor C Dowden which asked if the Council would take advantage of the lifting of the borrowing cap for Local Authorities, and explore opportunities to work with partners to build much needed social housing throughout Test Valley.
The Housing and Community Services Portfolio Holder responded that the Council has no housing stock and no Housing Revenue Account against which to borrow, which means there are no direct impacts or advantages for the Council resulting from the borrowing cap being lifted. However, the Council will continue to build on its excellent track record of delivering affordable housing in partnership with housing associations and developers. For four of the last five years Test Valley has delivered the highest number of completions in Hampshire which also includes 1,320 affordable homes. In 2016/17, Test Valley delivered the highest number of affordable housing units of all Hampshire authorities and continues to exceed its local target to deliver 200 new units of affordable housing per annum.
In recent years, Test Valley’s affordable housing delivery has included different products to meet different levels of need. With a new emphasis on social rented housing at both the national policy level and within the business plans of our developing partners, it is anticipated that Test Valley’s enabling role will continue to deliver new homes to support households in need who are registered on the waiting list. We will continue to deliver intermediate (home ownership) products, such as shared ownership, for those households in the local area who are in a position to access owner occupation but require a level of subsidy to do so.
Question 2
Councillor C Dowden then asked a question of the Leader whether he would provide a draft on the take-up of online services and for residents who have access to use services digitally, were the Council making it easy, efficient and as effective as possible.
The Leader responded that An online service for Council Tax and Business Rates was implemented in 2015 and to date has seen over 9,000 requests or changes submitted by customers. This system actually updates the customers record in real time and 85% of these go through automatically with no intervention from officers. With that came the option of receiving a council tax or business rates bill by email – overall 11% of residents have opted to receive their bill by email whilst business rates are at 22%.
In the Planning and Building service we have seen changes this year in the Building Control department. Since the 1st January we have received 1630 planning applications, 76% of those made via the online Planning Portal site.
The My Test Valley site and app was launched in 2015 and we have seen a steady increase in the number of residents choosing to report issues or request services online. There are currently 16 processes available to residents to complete themselves and we see around 35% of residents choosing to self serve in our peak time of March – May and around 25% at all other times.
The evidence of this is clear when looking at our Customer service department activities – they have met their targets consistently since 2016 and have seen a reduction in telephone calls of 13% in year 1 and a further 9% in year 2. In previous years additional temporary staff were employed to cover the peak garden waste period, this has not been needed for the last 2 years.
The communications and digital transformation teams work closely together to make sure access to these services is as straightforward as possible and aim to react quickly to feedback if things need to be changed. Signposting to the online services is available on the website, in email footers and in written correspondence.