The future delivery of disabled facilities grants will be debated by Lichfield District Council’s cabinet next week.
The existing contract will Millbrook Healthcare Ltd will expire in April 2023 and the local authority had already decided not to renew the agreement.
But talks over a proposed joint service with Tamworth Borough Council have now hit the buffers, with Lichfield District Council proposing to go it alone via the local authority-owned Lichfield West Midlands Trading Services.
A report to a meeting of the local authority’s cabinet said delivery via this method would provide a number of benefits.
It added that advantages would include greater flexibility with employment contracts to try and attract and retain skilled staff, a higher degree of control than by outsourcing the delivery and greater freedom to deliver non-statutory services which could generate additional income.
The report added:
“Staff will be able to perform more efficiently by focusing on just Lichfield district residents and having a single housing assistance policy to follow.
“The recruitment of experienced staff is key to the successful delivery of the new service – staff with excellent disabled facilities grant knowledge will be needed to ensure that grants are approved appropriately.”
Report to Lichfield District Council’s cabinet
The report also warned that their could be issues to resolve when the transfer of provider takes place.
“Although we are trying to minimise this [possible issues with applications carried over], the new service will inherit a backlog of cases which will potentially be more resource intensive to administer than those coming in as new enquiries.
“Due to a recent influx of new enquiries and the current provider not being able to progress applications, the backlog is unfortunately increasing – at the 1st September circa 200 residents were being supported by the current provider to apply for and complete works funded by a disabled facilities grant.
“Our ambition for the new service is to improve the overall service for our residents and increase performance in terms of level of spend, customer satisfaction and reduce the time taken from grant application to completion.
“However, we recognise that the backlog of cases will hinder performance for at least the first 12 months while the new service embeds itself and becomes established.”
Report to Lichfield District Council’s cabinet
The meeting of Lichfield District Council’s cabinet will be held on 11th October.
