Issue - meetings

·         Partnership budget

·         Labour budget

·         Conservative budget

RAAC INVESTMENT

(i)             to recognise the hard work being undertaken by Housing Officers to deal with the challenge of the Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) crisis, who helped to rehome over 350 tenants and were still working with RAAC-impacted homeowners to help them with their housing options;

(ii)           to note that the Council had secured an additional £10million Affordable Housing Supply Programme money, provided by the Scottish Government, to support the Council to meet costs associated with addressing RAAC affected properties in Balnagask;

CAPITAL INVESTMENT

(iii)          to welcome the significant work being carried out by Building Services who had turned around 2,536 void properties in 2024/2025, the highest ever turnover of properties achieved by the service;

(iv)          to note that property turnover continued to be exceptionally high with around 11% of over 23,000 properties being handed back each year;

(v)           to note the work that had been undertaken to create the Local Housing Strategy, Housing Asset Plan and the Housing Emergency Action Plan, all of which acknowledged the years of underinvestment in our housing stock, and set aims and objectives around bringing the Council’s empty properties back into use and reduce homelessness in the city;

(vi)          to note the 2024/25 Capital Programme delivered £58million of investment in our existing properties and agree to increase this to £63million of capital spend for 2026/27;

GENERAL

(vii)        to support CoSLA and the Scottish Government’s Housing Minister’s calls for the UK Government to write-off the historic Housing Revenue Account debt to provide capacity for supply of new housing;

(viii)       to approve the budget as attached in Appendix 1, page 2 (Revenue) and pages 27 to 29 (Capital) of the report, subject to the following amendments:

·       the setting of the weekly unrebated rents at an increase of 9.5%, for municipal homes, to take effect from Monday 6 April 2026;

·       add budget provision of £584,000 to the Repairs & Maintenance line for cyclical and environmental improvements to be undertaken at Summerhill and a plan developed for Tillydrone;

·       the reduction in the capital borrowing requirement of £25.655m by including the Additional Capital Grant, slippage in the Capital Programme of 27% and, recognising the pause in the scheme, a reduction to the Buy-backs budget of £1.46m;

(ix)          to approve the level of miscellaneous rents and service charges, including Heat with Rent and the General Fund Support Services Charges as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 22 to 23, to take effect from Monday 6 April 2026;

(x)           to approve the permanent inclusion of a £1,000,000 Rent Assistance Fund from financial year 2026/27;

(xi)          to approve the move from a 48 week to a 52 week rent structure for all rents with effect from 6 April 2025, which included miscellaneous rents;

(xii)        to delegate authority to the Chief Officer - Corporate Landlord following consultation with the Chief Officer - Finance, Chief Officer - Capital, Chief Officer - Housing and Conveners of the Communities, Housing and Public Protection and Finance and Resources Committees to vire monies within the Housing Capital Plan to  ...  view the full decision text for item 2

The Council had before it a report by the Chief Officer - Finance which provided information to enable the Council to approve a housing revenue and capital budget for 2026/27, including setting of the rents and other charges on the Housing Revenue Account (HRA) for the financial year.

The report recommended:-

that the Council -

(a)           approve the budget as attached in Appendix 1, page 2, of the report;

(b)           approve the setting of the weekly unrebated rents, an increase of 12%, for municipal homes in Appendix 1, pages 3 to 4 of the report, to take effect from Monday 6 April 2026;

(c)           note the level of revenue contribution to the Housing Capital budget for 2026/27 is £nil as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 27 to 29;

(d)           note the proposed budget leads to a surplus for the year of £1.765m, which would increase the HRA working balances as at 31 March 2027, and this supported the approved strategy of restoring the working balances to 10% of HRA Revenue to meet future operational requirements and risks, noting that if the Housing Revenue Account recorded a deficit and had no reserves then the Council’s General Fund must make a contribution to balance the Account;  

(e)           approve the level of miscellaneous rents and service charges, including Heat with Rent and the General Fund Support Services Charges as detailed in Appendix 1, pages 22 to 23, to take effect from Monday 6 April 2026;

(f)             approve, based on a rental increase of 12% the Base Capital Programme for the financial years 2026/27, 2027/28, 2028/29, 2029/2030 and 2030/31 Appendix 1, pages 27 to 29;

(g)           note the inclusion of the tiered trend analysis of the Housing Revenue Account Budget 2026/27, page 5 in Appendix 1, and the current actions to move spend from Tier 2 Early Intervention to Tier 1 Prevention; 

(h)           approve the permanent inclusion of a £1,000,000 Rent Assistance Fund from, 2026/27;

(i)             note the results of the tenant consultation in respect of  the  move from a 48 week to a 52 week rent structure, alongside affordability considerations and determine whether to implement a change or to maintain the status quo, page 15; and

(j)             delegate authority to the Chief Officer - Corporate Landlord in consultation with the Chief Officer - Finance, Chief Officer - Capital and the Chief Officer - Housing to vire monies within the Housing Capital Plan to support any works that may be required to review the non-traditional housing stock and city centre multi storeys, retrospectively reporting any virement to the next available meeting of the Finance and Resources Committee as part of the Quarterly Financial Performance reports.   

Councillor Radley moved, seconded by Councillor Greig:-

That the Council approve the Partnership HRA budget as contained here at pages 3 to 5.

Councillor Malik moved as an amendment, seconded by Councillor Graham:-

That the Council approve the Labour HRA budget as contained here at pages 7 to 11.

Councillor Houghton moved as a further amendment, seconded by Councillor  ...  view the full minutes text for item 2