Council housing performance figures

The condition of York’s council homes is heading in the right direction but there is still work to do, the authority’s housing spokesperson has said amid claims of managed decline.

York Council data showed the amount of homes failing to meet decent home standards reached a four-year low in 2024-5 but tenant satisfaction rates missed their targets.

Coun Michael Pavlovic, York Council’s Labour executive member for housing, the standards data showed investment into their homes was paying dividends but they recognised satisfaction needed to improve.

But Liberal Democrat opposition leader Coun Nigel Ayre said downward trends including the amount of tenants being satisfied with the council’s housing service falling was really worrying.

It comes after the council self-referred to the newly-formed Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) to highlight some areas where consumer standards were not being met.

The launch of the RSH in April 2024 means that councils including York are now subject to stricter regulations on housing standards.

A stock condition survey carried out last year looked at 6,400 of the roughly 7,500 homes owned by the council.

A council report stated it found a number of repairs which had not been previously logged along with potential health and safety risks.

Figures showed the amount of homes failing to meet decent standards fell from 1.9 per cent in 2023-4 to 1.5 the following year.

The report stated the fall was very positive given it happened in the same year the survey took place.

The percentage of homes that failed to meet decent standards was 1.6 per cent in 2022-3 and 4.9 per cent in 2021-2.

The report stated the amount of vacant council homes in York, known as voids, had reduced by around half since June 2022.

Council homes are re-let 45 days after tenants leave on average, compared to the 59-day target.

Refurbishments at Glen Lodge and Bell Farm are set to add 71 homes to the council’s housing stock this year, with a further 68 set to be newly-built.

The report stated the council’s priority was to reduce the amount of people waiting for assessments for their applications for social homes to zero.

A total of 464 applications are yet to be processed on top of the 1,518 who are on the council’s Housing Register waiting list.

But tenant satisfaction data for 2024-5 showed 60 per cent of tenants were happy with the council as a landlord, compared to a benchmark of 70.9 per cent.

The percentage for 2024-5 compared to 69.9 per cent in 2023-4 and 78.3 per cent the previous year.

The amount of those satisified with the council’s handling of antisocial behaviour was 41 per cent, compared to a benchmark of 51 per cent.

The same figure for 2023-4 was 43.4 per cent and it stood at 44.6 per cent the year before.

Tenants who thought the council kept communal areas clean and well-maintained made up 44 per cent of the total compared to a benchmark of 63.7 per cent.

More than half of tenants, 51.2 per cent, believed communal areas were kept clean and well-maintained in 2023-4.

A total of 38 per cent felt the council made a positive contribution to their neighbourhood in 2024-5, compared to a benchmark of 58.9 and about 45.3 in 2023-4.

Council housing spokesperson Coun Pavlovic said data which showed where they were doing well and where they needed to improve had been presented more transparently than ever before.

Labour’s Coun Pavlovic said: “Almost every measure on conditions shows improvements from when Labour came into administration in 2023, much of our housing stock was built before the 1950s using non-traditional methods.

“The unprecedented levels of investment we’re making has started to pay dividends, but it will take time.

“We know that tenant satisfaction isn’t where it should be.”

Liberal Democrat opposition leader Coun Ayre said the satisfaction data showed residents’ views of how the council was managing its homes was getting progressively worse.

Coun Ayre said: “This is a managed decline in what people think of our housing services, it’s really worrying.

“The first step to improving a service is accepting where we’re going wrong.

“We need to accept this decline and look at how we can turn things around and make improvements going forward.”