Agenda item

Councillors Lynne Allen and Peter Curling attended as Ward Councillors in support of the petition.   

Concerns, comments and suggestions raised at the meeting included the following:

• There were inaccuracies within the report which included reference to a petition that had been submitted in March 2010 (not July);
• The petition had been submitted to Hillingdon Homes.  Concern was expressed that Hillingdon Homes’ guidelines for considering petitions specified that they would be considered within a specified period – this had not been adhered to;
• Petitioners had been offered possible meeting dates in September 2010 by Hillingdon Homes but were given no more than 11 days’ notice.  The dates offered were not suitable as the petition organiser was unable to attend and the meeting never took place;
• Although Hillingdon Homes had gone back into the Council in October 2011, the petition took another 11 months to get to a Petition Hearing;
• The Council was aware that there would be issues with regard to the apportionment of energy costs in 1999 which was subsequently documented in numerous Council reports;
• The scheme of heating charges had increased by 4½% in March 2007.  Although the Council had been challenged on the subsequent refund, residents had not been provided with an adequate explanation;
• There had been a significant change in the amount of money refunded to some residents in 2008/2009 which had then reverted back to the expected level in 2009/2010;
• One of the residents’ refund had been recorded as: 2007= £294.35; 2008 = £244.35 (£184.86 + £59.39); 2009 = £36.95; 2010 = £318.49; 2011 = £399.56.  The amount paid by the resident had not changed dramatically and it was queried why the amount refunded in 2009 was so different to all other years;
• The temporary solution that had been put in place to apportion the costs had lasted four years;
• The current apportionment did not take into account the number of people living in the property (and therefore using hot water) or how frugally some residents might use energy.  This led to some residents subsidising the refund received by others that had not been quite so careful about their energy usage; and
• It was suggested that it might have been better to wait until the new boilers had been fitted before the refunds had been given out.

Councillor Philip Corthorne listened to the concerns of those present and responded to the points raised.  He apologised for the unacceptable length of time it had taken for the petition to be considered.  It was noted that the petition had been overlooked in the transfer to the Council in October 2010. 

Residents had been charged a regular amount during the year to cover the cost of the fuel, maintenance, etc.  If, at the end of the year, there was a financial surplus, residents had been given a refund.  If there was a deficit, they were charged for the difference.  Once the equipment had become obsolete, there had been no accurate way to measure how much energy had been consumed by each property.  It was noted that the Council did not know how many people lived in each property so would have been unable to base the refunds on occupancy. 

The way that the refunds had been calculated had not changed in the last four years.  As such, officers were asked to investigate why there had been such a change in the refund received in 2009 (as specified above) and report back to the Cabinet Member by 5 October 2011.  This information would then be shared with the petition organiser. 

RESOLVED:  That the Cabinet Member:

1. noted:

(a)   the reasons for the delays in hearing this petition;

(b)  the actions being taken by Hillingdon Housing Service to address the concerns raised by the petitioners;

(c)   the actions taken to implement a permanent solution by replacing the obsolete heating and hot water meters; and

(d)  the developments that emerged during the installation of new meters and actions taken to resolved these; and

2. requested that officers investigate the reasons for the fluctuation in one of the residents’ refund (as detailed above) and report back to the Cabinet Member.

REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATION

To address the concerns raised within the petition and at the Petition Hearing.  

ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS CONSIDERED

Using the previous year’s readings and distribution based on number of bedrooms.