Speeches by Woodcock.

“To go back to what my colleague said, it sounds like you are looking at a lot of paperwork rather than talking to tenants. Is that going to provide you with an accurate reflection of how tenants feel they are being treated, rather than how the landlord says they are treating them?”

“One of the common threads that came up between Grenfell and the death of Awaab Ishak was assumptions made by housing professionals. We have heard clearly from campaigners, and I have heard in my in-tray, as I am sure my colleagues have, that tenants often feel stigmatised by their landlords. How good a job would you do…”

“I am Sean Woodcock, the MP for Banbury.”

“Are you very confident on that?”

“My last question is about the proposed saving of £3 million by absorbing risks. We have seen throughout our tenure as a Committee that the risk allowance is often used in full and sometimes needs more added on. Could you talk about that?”

“That is one example.”

“Changing your approach?”

“The largest saving you have proposed for Strategic Estates is capitalising staff costs. Could you explain how that would work?”

“Is the idea for that to bring down costs going forward? It clearly cannot deal with inflation and stuff like that, but if you are doing things more proactively, you could be doing less reactively, which means you would shift the resources that way or even remove some of them. Is that the longer-term aspiration?”

“A lot of that will be relatively small scale in terms of cost. Okay, plumbers are expensive, but they are not going to account for a large chunk of that budget. How is the budget managed? You said that things come up urgently, but with proper asset management, you can prevent things from becoming urgent. Can you explai…”

“By reactive, I assume you mean someone calling to say that the toilet or a lift is broken and so on.”

“You mentioned that you have 2,900 reactive—”

“So you think that will make a difference?”

“Strategic Estates is the largest area of spend, and it has grown quite significantly. Can you talk to that, and maybe also explain how that budget is managed in terms of mitigating risk?”

“Strategic Estates is the largest area of spend, and it has grown quite significantly. Can you talk to that, and maybe also explain how that budget is managed in terms of mitigating risk?”

“Are you very confident on that?”

“My last question is about the proposed saving of £3 million by absorbing risks. We have seen throughout our tenure as a Committee that the risk allowance is often used in full and sometimes needs more added on. Could you talk about that?”

“That is one example.”

“Changing your approach?”

“The largest saving you have proposed for Strategic Estates is capitalising staff costs. Could you explain how that would work?”