Vital council homes are sitting empty for weeks on end due to delays in utility companies dealing with the debts of previous tenants, Bathgate’s Local Area Committee has heard.
Local housing manager Graeme McKee told councillors they were dealing with delays in response times, and said as with any customer who has had problems contacting an energy supplier the same is true of council officials,
One of his staff members spent three and half hours on the phone to Scottish Power on Friday trying to follow through contacts to gain access to supply to a void property.
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At the end of it a promise of an email to solve the problems failed to materialise and the whole process had to start again.
Now suppliers are facing revolt from West Lothian and other councils, calling for a simplified system dealing with void council homes.
West Lothian has been trying to tackle a housing waiting list of around 10,000 for years.
Void properties are the bugbear of councillors’ surgeries. With council housing at a premium the number of properties sitting empty for weeks on end has plenty of desperate people demanding to know why.
Mr McKee said: "There continues to be weekly monitoring to allow properties to be let as soon as we can.”
Councillor Willie Boyle said: "There seems to be an inordinate length of time to turn some properties around and to me, I’ve been on the council for 16 years and I can’t remember voids being running as long. Is there a trend behind it in particular. Is it something we are missing? The longer it takes to fill these voids the longer it take us to address these waiting lists.”
Graham Ross, the recently appointed repairs manager for the ward, told the meeting that he had done some analysis in the past six or eight weeks to see what had changed.
He told the meeting: “The turnover generally is 16 per week, we’re only doing 12 just now that equates to 200 in a year.
There are three separate issues that we think are affecting that. There’s a bigger issue with utilities because there’s more debt as houses become empty. There’s higher levels of debt and that’s taking a lot longer to get that cleared so that we can then work in the house.
"The number of category C houses, which need a lot more work , is a lot higher.
"Our workforce has been reduced significantly over the past two years, and we have had problems with recruitment and selection."
Councillor Pauline Stafford asked: “Is there any national work being done given the spiralling amount of debt.”
Mr Ross said the council was trying to partner with a supplier called Utilita which would deal with clearing of accounts to allow repairs staff quicker access to void homes.
At the moment it can take up to ten days before repair teams can get access to voids as the council waits for debts to be cleared. Under the planned scheme Utilita would deal directly with the suppliers and become the main supplier for the property. A new tenant can then choose which supplier to take on, or to remain with Utilita.
On hearing about the three and half hour phone call Councillor Boyle said: “That's pretty unacceptable given the position we’re in trying to house tenants.”
He added: “The volume of calls to utility companies will go up. We need to make a noise about that so that the public sees it is not the council at fault. This is a complete and utter waste of public money."
Mr McKee said that the message from the utility company on Friday during the phone calls was “Unless you are out of supply please hang up.”
Councillor Harry Cartmill chairing the meeting asked what could the councillors, all speaking with one voice do, to address the issue.
Lorraine McGrorty, Committee officer, told councillors that the Chief Executive of the council was to write to the chief executives of national utility companies to express dissatisfaction with what was happening with void properties, and there are other national projects under way too as the same issues face other local authorities.
Councillors in the Blackburn and Whitburn ward had been informed of the work last week and had supported the move. Mrs McGrorty said: “ I can pass on this committee’s support for those initiatives”.
Councillors agreed.
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