Council pays millions for homes survey after data failure
Dudley Council coughed up more than £3m to a private company for surveying its homes – then paid the same company to sell them off.
Watch more of our videos on ShotsTV.com
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
The authority chose to pay private sector real estate company Savills a total of £3,250,000 to carry out a stock condition survey on all of its 21,000 council homes.
Savills was awarded the contract after the council found its own records were so incomplete it was forced to refer itself to the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) for an investigation into possible breaches of standards.
In April 2023 the RSH issued a regulatory notice against the council after finding more than 8,000 remedial fire safety actions and around 500 annual asbestos safety inspections had not been carried out.
Also around 4,000 homes had not had an electrical inspection within a decade and more than 300 homes had overdue gas safety inspections.
Kate Dodsworth, director of consumer regulation at RSH, said: “Dudley Council has failed to meet health and safety requirements and has put its tenants at potential risk.”
Cash to pay Savills was taken from the ring-fenced Housing Revenue Account and when officers were questioned about the size of the bill at a scrutiny committee meeting in September 2023, they said additional funds were being taken from the 2024/25 investment and Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) programmes.
Kathy Jones, Dudley’s director of housing and communities told councillors the stock condition survey would provide information to allow the local authority to develop an investment programme targeted towards property requirements and needs.
Cash-strapped Dudley Council currently has a policy of selling off empty homes if the cost of bringing them back up to standard is greater than £10,000.
By August 2024 the council had sold 132 properties and had a further 86 homes, two sheltered housing schemes and 15 void garage plots on the market.
Speaking at the time Councillor Ian Bevan, cabinet member for housing and communities, said: “When it is deemed the investment does not offer long-term value for money, we take the decision to dispose of the property.
“We have an agreement with Savills through the National Framework Partnership: Lot 5; Strategic Asset Advisory Real Estate Framework to market the sale of these properties. The fees for disposals are in line with those charged across the sector.”
Details obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Local Democracy Reporting Service show the council pays Savills two percent for all sales up to a total of £100m, 1.5 percent when the total gets to between £101m and £150m and 1.1 percent if the total goes higher than that.
