There is a report going to the HHCC Scrutiny Panel meeting on Tuesday on the results of a major survey of RBC tenants who live in flatted areas and receive a cleaning service in communal (estate) areas.
This is the first survey to be carried out on this Council service since 2007.
The Labour-controlled Council in Reading took the decision in 2006 to introduce service charges to make up the funding shortfall they needed to keep the Council's stock 'in-house' i.e. under Council control.
In the Lib Dems, we are concerned about the impact that charges (which will be an additional charge on top of rents) could have on tenants on low-income.
Working tenants represent about 30% of all RBC tenants. The majority of RBC tenants (70%) will have the service charges covered by housing benefit. In a recession we should not be asking some of Reading's poorest residents to pay even more in charges to the Council.
Particularly when, as we know, millions of pounds of tenants' rent goes to Whitehall and is not spent locally: something the Lib Dems have campaigned to change, both locally, and nationally.
Labour councillors wanted to introduce service charges in Reading soon but appear to have got cold feet in recent months.
One of the reasons for the delay, there is no doubt, is because officers discovered that cleaning services provided to Council tenants were very patchy across the Borough.
The report going to scrutiny on Tuesday says:
'it is planned to introduce a service charge for cleaning services at some point in 2010/11.'
Call me cynical, but somehow I don't think Labour councillors in Reading will want to take the risk of introducing these charges before the local elections in 2010.
Any plan to introduce a blanket service charges for cleaning for all RBC tenants (which was Labour's original intention) was likely run into difficulties because it became pretty obvious when officers and Labour councillors looked into it that all tenants on all estates were not receiving the same quality of cleaning services.
Results of the tenant survey, which was completed by 1405 (49%) of 2869 tenants show that while 60% of tenants rated RBC cleaning services as good or excellent, 40% of tenants who responded thought that cleaning was 'fair' or 'poor'.
The survey also found that tenants in high-rise blocks were generally less satisfied than those in low-rise blocks.
Tenants were also asked about how satisfied they were with cleanliness of estate areas. Litter has been identified as a key concern of residents.
RBC Housing department has identified a series of actions that will be taken in response to the survey. This is positive.
I will be calling for urgent action to address concerns raised by residents - particularly those living on estates in parts of the Borough who were clearly very dissatisfied with the Council's cleaning service.
Plainly some tenants are not getting value for money for the rent they pay the Council. This is wrong.
I think it would be entirely wrong for the Labour administration to press ahead with introducing extra charges for cleaning until these basic issues are sorted out to Council tenants' satisfication.
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