Agenda item

Landlord HMO Licensing Costs

 

Councillor Georgina Culley asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Housing:

 

On what basis is this Council charging landlords for the Council’s accommodation costs, IT, HR and legal costs when landlords have applied for HMO licences which have not been issued by the Council?

 

Councillor Jane Urquhart replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor, and thank you Councillor Culley for your question. As has become a bit familiar to us in this chamber, it sounds slightly as if there’s some casework going on in full Council, however, the answer to this question is actually very very simple. The basis on which we charge the fees that we do for HMO licences is because that’s the legislative arrangement that’s in place.

 

So the current HMO licence fee includes all costs recoverable under the Housing Act 2004, so the legislation says that that is the way we can recover our costs, and Local Government Association advice also sends us down this route. I’m sure that currently Councillor Culley’s got some very good routes in to challenge the Local Government Association should she wish to, as we know which party that’s controlled by at the moment.

 

So the advice from both of those sources, from the legislation and from the LGA toolkit, is to include costs such as accommodation, HR, IT and legal costs. We often hear from the Tories here, and nationally, about how we ought to not put too many burdens on the Council Tax payer, and how it’s very important that Council Tax payers aren’t unduly burdened. Well, this system does not burden them at all, because the licensing scheme is self-funding, in accordance with the guidance.

 

So the fee, of course, is an application fee. It’s not dependent on the satisfactory grant of a licence. Because clearly, whether or not a licence is granted, is dependent on a whole range of factors, and there is significant work involved whether or not the licence is indeed granted. So again, within the legislation and the guidance, there’s not a requirement for us to refund or reimburse all or part of a fee if the applicants circumstances change or the application is no longer proceeded with. However, in some circumstances, where no licence has yet been issued, we will consider matters on a case by case basis, and we will exercise discretion to waive part of the fee, effectively therefore giving a refund. This could occur, for example, if the applicant decides to sell the property part way through the licensing application period, and in such circumstances, we would of course have incurred some costs in the application process up until that point. And we may decide in those circumstances to give a refund, however, it remains both legitimate and reasonable to retain the element of the fee reflecting the work that has gone on thus far.

 

So, it’s the legislative position, and we act in accordance with the LGA guidance. So I would say, that if Councillor Culley feels the legislation is wrong, she’s probably got the ear of the relevant minister better than I have, and so I’m sure she will take that up in the right areas. If she thinks the LGA guidance is incorrect, again, I’m sure she’s got the ear of the Chair of the LGA to take up that issue too. Of course, HMO licensing is a really important thing for us in the City, because it’s part of the priority that we give to keep HMOs in a decent condition. And I would also hope for support from our local Conservatives on that issue, whilst we know that nationally, Conservatives are not so supportive in keeping private rented accommodation in a decent condition.

 

Joint Ward Walks

 

Councillor Andrew Rule asked the following question of the Leader:

 

Is the portfolio holder aware of the directive given to the Neighbourhood Services Department preventing councillors from minority parties from taking part in Ward Walks with members of the Labour Group and in any event, do they feel that aside from the directive being undemocratic and at odds with the “New Politics” espoused by their National Leader, that the increased work and resource this will place on Neighbourhood Services in arranging separate walks for opposition councillors is a completely unnecessary utilisation of resources?

 

Councillor Jon Collins replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor, and can I thank Councillor Rule for his question. Councillors are elected as individuals, and as a result, Council and its officers need to be able to respond on that basis when Councillors look to undertake their ward responsibilities or to address constituents’ issues.  Furthermore, as Councillors undertake their duties alongside work, care, or other commitments, coordinating ward activities between a ward’s Councillors isn’t always easy or convenient. I am not aware of any directive preventing joint or ward activity, or joint ward walks, and indeed, from my perspective it helps when Councillors between and within party groups decide to cooperate and work together, and I’m sure it’s something that, where possible, we would like to encourage.

 

City of Literature

 

Councillor Rosemary Healy asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture:

 

Would the Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture agree with me that Nottingham being named a City of Literature is to be welcomed?

 

Councillor Dave Trimble replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor. Nottingham being named a UNESCO City of Literature should indeed be welcomed by all with a stake in this City. The City and the County have a fabulous heritage of writers, with Byron, Lawrence and Sillitoe, the latter of whom I had the honour of being my guest at the Goose Fair dinner; an absolutely fantastic man.

 

All of these authors were at the cutting edge of writing in their day, and all of them with a fantastic rebellious streak which sits very beautifully alongside our plans for a new Rebellion Gallery at Nottingham Castle.

 

Many people contributed and helped Nottingham to secure this fabulous accolade. A massive amount of research was carried out and collected from almost every corner, and every organisation within the City. It was then very much a collective effort, with many partners working day and night, and this was then submitted to be scrutinised by UNESCO, in order to obtain the awarding of the City of Literature status.

 

It’s important that I acknowledge the funding awarded by the Arts Council England, the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University, the Creative Quarter, One Nottingham, and the City Council, that made this bid possible. Plus, the enormous in-kind support given by Bromley House Library, Writing East Midlands, Nottingham Writers’ Studio, the Left Lion, Nottingham Playhouse, and the Nottingham Post. In particular, I’d like to give a huge thanks to Pippa Hennessy who helped project manage the bid, and the City of Literature Chair David Belbin. They both put an enormous amount of work into this achievement. Can I also thank Councillor Cat Arnold, my Portfolio Holder assistant, and an author in her own right, who sat on the external partnership board, as well as Sharon Scaniglia, who gave valuable officer support from the City Council.

 

It’s also important to recognise the help and assistance given by current writers and authors in the City, such as Stephen Lowe, Michael Eaton, John Harvey, and William Ivory, or Billy Ivory as he was known when he was the goalie for the Trip to Jerusalem football team. How things change!

 

Nottingham Express Transit, or NET, also deserve a mention. They named 2 trams after Byron and Lawrence in Phase 1, and at my request they eagerly agreed to name further trams in Phase 2, hence we have William Ivory, Stephen Lowe, and Alan Sillitoe with trams named after them, making a total of 5 trams named after authors from the City, which was actually part of the bid as well, so that went in to UNESCO.

 

As important as the past and the present are, there’s also the future that we need to look to, and it’s absolutely right that UNESCO require libraries as an integral part of the process. We have invested in our libraries in the Meadows, Bulwell, St Anns, and Hyson Green, and we’ve got others in the pipeline that we’re investing in too. And I think it’s really interesting that such a well-respected worldwide organisation as UNESCO, have in place a policy to encourage British cities, amongst other cities from around the world, to invest in libraries, 165 years after the first Public Libraries Act was enacted in parliament. I think that’s really important and very interesting too.

 

We also need to look at improving the literacy of children in our City schools. We need to use it for that, and we need to encourage the writers and authors of the future, as part of that City of Literature status.

 

Nottingham has now joined just nineteen other cities across the world, which includes Edinburgh, Dublin, Melbourne, Prague, Heidelberg, Granada, and Barcelona. Lord Mayor, Barcelona is very much a favourite city of mine; there is culture literally around every single corner, and I’ve visited it very many times. I was there last summer, on the night that they won the Champions League Cup Final, and there must have been about a million people on the streets. On 6 June I watched that match in a bar crammed full of Barcelona fans. Our group made friends with a group of Barcelona fans in that bar. 6 months later, on 12 December, our group received an email. It said "hello. This is Kolja from Barcelona." It was not in that accent I don't think! "This is Kolja from Barcelona, you may not remember me. We celebrated FC Barcelona winning the match together; I dare say we had great fun. Today I saw that both Nottingham and Barcelona are now part of the UNESCO Creative Cities network. This is really good news for our cities." He didn't know that I was a City Councillor, he still doesn't know, he doesn't know that his email is being read out in public in this chamber, and I've not heard from him or been in touch with him since, but I will take that recommendation for Nottingham anytime and anywhere.

 

Indeed, as a result of Nottingham gaining the City of Literature status, we're already seeing many websites and social media sites naming Nottingham as the city to visit. The status of Nottingham becoming a UNESCO City of Literature is a fantastic opportunity. It enables this city to raise our profile to a higher stage, and I believe that it’s already been welcomed by very many. Lord Mayor, it would be quite nice if the opposition embraced it, and formally welcomed it too. Thank you.

 

Nottingham as a Top 10 City for Investment

 

Councillor Leslie Ayoola asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Jobs, Growth and Transport:

 

Could the Portfolio Holder please tell us what steps the council have taken that has helped in getting Nottingham named as a top 10 location for business investment?

 

Councillor Nick McDonald replied as follows:

 

Lord Mayor, thank you, and can I thank Councillor Ayoola for this question. We are of course delighted to be named by Grant Thornton as one of the top 10 places for attracting foreign direct investment – although by no means complacent. What is particularly pleasing, is that achieving that target is a manifesto commitment. And I have to say, when we wrote that commitment, we thought it would take a few years to achieve. To be already in the top 10 cities for foreign direct investment is excellent news, I think therefore we will need to revise our targets upwards, and to paraphrase one of our city’s great figures, the legendary Brian Clough, I’m not going to say we should be the best city in the UK for foreign investment, but I would like us to be in the top 1.

 

Ok, so why are we an attractive city for foreign investment, and why are we ranked so highly? Well our strengths lie in the fact that we have a high quality offer, in relation to skills, existing business base, infrastructure and connectivity, also for a relatively low cost. Put simply, we can offer a lot of what a city like London can offer, but for a lower cost. For investors, particularly foreign investors for whom the 1.5 hour journey to London is not a significant distance, that is compelling. And just as our many Nottingham business have for many years sold that offer to their customers, so as a city we can sell that offer to investors looking to invest in our city and create jobs.

 

But what has been of particular importance for the last couple of years is that we started to make much stronger efforts to sell that offer, and to actively win investment in a way that we hadn’t done before. We’ve worked hard to ensure that our offer has reached key business advisors and intermediaries, through a sustained campaign of engagement. And I have to say, we have worked hard on this issue, and I commend all the officers who work very hard on the Inward Investment team, and for the creation of the Growth Hub from 2013 onwards. We’ve welcomed some major investors into Nottingham – such as Now:Pensions, Verus Precision and Parexel. And through those investments we’ve created and safeguarded over 1,000 jobs. 1,000 jobs is a big thing, it’s a significant thing for those people, and for our city’s economy.

 

It should be noted that our significant investment in infrastructure also gives the city its edge. It gives it increased profile, improves its attractiveness, and it has further enabled our ability to compete with other cities. So those long term decisions that we’ve taken together as a Council to invest in that infrastructure ultimately pay off.

 

What does the future hold? Well we must not slow down the pace of our efforts to promote our city as a place for growth in any way. And that means we must continue to do all we can to market Nottingham, to attract investors to our city, and to reach out and attract foreign investors into our city. Because a city like Nottingham must be expansive, it must be ambitious, it must build international alliances if it is to be successful. We must also always do that with a clear eye on the benefits we obtain for Nottingham from any activity we undertake. Everything we do on this agenda, everything we do economically at all, must be seen through the prism of jobs and growth, and if it doesn’t deliver jobs and growth, we shouldn’t be doing it.

 

So, we are continuing to drive forward a programme to boost our ability to attract investment through the creation of Marketing Nottingham, joining the Inward Investment team with the Business Tourism team to give a greater voice and consistency of our message nationally and internationally. We’re actively delivery a pro-active campaign in China, India and Germany, and we’re working more closely with local businesses to support their export ambitions. These are the right things to do to, and as the Grant Thornton report shows, they are delivering results.

 

Robin Hood Card

 

Councillor Glyn Jenkins asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Jobs, Growth and Transport:

 

Can the Portfolio Holder for Job, Growth and Transport please inform the chamber as to what benefits the new Robin Hood Card will give to the citizens of Nottingham?

 

Councillor Nick McDonald replied as follows:

 

Can I thank Councillor Jenkins for his question. We were extremely pleased and proud to introduce the Robin Hood smartcard before Christmas; the first city outside of London to introduce an integrated pay-as-you-go smartcard like this. And I think that says a lot about Nottingham’s continued ability to stay ahead of the pack with regards to the transport system, and a lot about the continued commitment and investment of this council, by which of course I mean this Labour Group, to prioritise transport in Nottingham over many years, in fact a number of decades.

 

So can I start by thanking all of my colleagues for their hard work in helping to deliver this important step forward for Nottingham. All of the members of Executive have been big proponents of all of this work. And can I particularly thank my colleague Councillor Urquhart, whose tireless work doing the transport brief before I took over it formed the bedrock for the developments we’re now seeing, who spent many hours I know developing the thinking and strategy behind an integrated ticket for Nottingham. But further, I’d like to thank our partners: Nottingham City Transport, Trent Barton, and Tramlink, who’ve been willing to come together to make this work. And I must say, I’ve been delighted since I took over the brief a few months ago, with the way in which we’re all working together. I think they absolutely get the importance of transport to Nottingham, I think they absolutely get the need to work in collaboration. That doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges, and of course we need to work through those challenges. But I think we all know where we need to get to, and all of us are committed to getting there.

 

So why is the integrated ticket important? Well, let’s start with the technical stuff, and Lord Mayor and my colleagues may spot that this is the bit that my officers wrote! The Robin Hood card integrates all main bus and tram operators onto one flexible smartcard. So that means, in effect, it allows public transport users of all the main forms of public transport in the city to use a single card. Now that, you may argue, is not new. The difference with the Robin Hood card, is that users are charged for the trips they make from an electronic purse. They don’t have to decide in advance which ticket to purchase; this is automatically worked out afterwards. That means you don’t have to plan your day when you buy your ticket, you can make that decision as you see fit, and know that the card you have will allow you on to whatever form of public transport you need to use.

 

There is also a daily fare cap for travellers on each operator and across more than one operator. These are set at least 10% less than the price of buying a ticket by cash. Once a cap is reached, the user is not charged any more. Over the next year, these caps will be extended to cover weekly and monthly travel – giving even greater flexibility. So it really is very much like an Oyster card, and it really is a smartcard that allows the transport system in Nottingham to operate in an integrated way. Not only that, but the Robin Hood card can be purchased and topped up at over 60 machines around the City, meaning users don’t have to queue up at a travel centre, and more machines will come on stream over the next year.

 

The objective of the Robin Hood Card is to make public transport easier and simpler to use, integrating across operators, and that’s important, because it means more people get on a bus or get on a tram, and that helps all of these operators, it means they do better and can invest more in the network. It also means that people choose not to get in their cars every time, it means that congestion is driven down, it means that air quality is improved, it means a greener cleaner city. It also means a more community orientated city, with people sat not in their cars, but together on public transport, and I genuinely believe that public transport is fundamental to the success of cities, and to our city of Nottingham. I genuinely believe that high quality public transport, green transport infrastructure, communal transport methods, publicly owned transport, is what marks out successful cities. And we should be very proud of that, because that’s what we have in Nottingham. We have the best bus network, the best bus operators outside London. We made the tough decision to hold onto our bus company several decades ago, and by God, what a good decision that was when you see the sort of service people have to put up with in other comparative cities. We have the best tram system, and one day soon I hope we will have the best tram network in the UK – an amazing transport system.

 

The building of that infrastructure has helped build our economy and it’s helped our labour market. The operation of that transport system helps our city operate better day after day. It brings people together: it connects us, literally, but in a deeper way too. An integrated ticket that boosts the number of people who use it, that allows people the flexibility to use transport in that way, that makes the whole network feel like a single network, and that is absolutely fundamental. Now I don’t pretend for a second there isn’t more to do, clearly there is; our network needs to integrate more closely. As we regenerate our city we have to find the right balance between making our city navigable for public transport users, pedestrians, cyclists, and car users as well, and we will. But we have a lot to be proud of, and the Robin Hood smartcard is just one further step towards the sort of European transport infrastructure system that I think Nottingham should aim for. And I use the word European very deliberately, because the European model is, I believe, absolutely the model that Nottingham should be aiming for. This is yet another important step, and one that could not have been taken without the hard work of this Council.

 

Properties fit for human habitation

 

Councillor Toby Neal asked the following question of the Portfolio Holder for Housing:

 

Does the Portfolio Holder agree with me that private sector landlords should be legally bound to ensure that their properties are fit for human habitation? And does she not think it outrageous that Conservative MPs would vote to deny Nottingham tenants the right to live in safe accommodation?

 

Councillor Jane Urquhart replied as follows:

 

Thank you Lord Mayor, and thanks Councillor Neal for your question. Councillors won’t, I’m sure, particularly from the things I said earlier in response to Councillor Culley’s question, be surprised to hear that yes of course I agree that private sector landlords should be legally bound to ensure their properties are fit for human habitation. It’s fairly basic, isn’t it - that a house, that is a dwelling, should be fit for human habitation? That’s pretty much what you would hope and expect.

 

So the amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill that was voted down by the Conservatives last week would have made it a requirement that a rented home should be fit for human habitation before it is rented out and then should maintained as such. It would have given legal rights to tenants to take action themselves against their landlord where properties were in an unfit condition without necessarily having to complain to the local authority. If that basic requirement was in place it would mean that landlords would be required to be far more pro-active in ensuring that their homes met those minimum standards, rather than being able to get away with renting poor quality homes to tenants who are often vulnerable and find it difficult to deal with the officialdom that we present as the only organisation that can tackle these issues.

 

So at present, although there is a concept of being “fit for human habitation” existing in law, it only applies to properties rented out at levels that have not been updated since 1957. I suspect that some of the things that were considered acceptable then might not be now. So there is, in effect, no current or meaningful requirement for a home to be let or maintained at a minimum fit condition.

 

So, of course, this is of great concern to us in Nottingham. At the current time, unsafe conditions and disrepair in the private rented sector are addressed by the local authority using the Health and Housing Safety Rating System under the 2004 Housing Act. This of course relies on us as a local authority, for enforcement, and depends on local authorities having the resource and capacity to enforce effectively.

 

Now in Nottingham I’m proud of our proactive stance on this, and we will continue to be proactive in this area. Wouldn’t it have been so much better if the government could have helped us with this problem, rather than leaving it to us, as they often do, to pick up not only the pieces and the effects of that disrepair, but the costs as well?