The Committee received a report which sought authority for the Council to extend the current partnering contract with Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) to deliver its repairs and maintenance work to its housing stock for a further two years until 31 March 2025.

The report explained that on 31 March 2017 Reading Borough Council (RBC) had entered into a partnering contract with Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) to deliver repairs and maintenance work to its housing stock. Under the terms of that contract an agreed extension had extended the contract until 31 March 2023.  WBC had been very happy with the service provided to date, however they were required to go through a process of market testing and possible re-tender of the contract which they were estimating would take approximately 24 months to complete.  As the current contract had come to an end and as they had not been able to enter into a new contract at the current time, WBC had requested that RBC agree to extend the existing arrangement for a further 2 years.  There would be an appropriate uplift in costs to ensure RBC were not subsidising the work undertaken for WBC.

The report explained that the benefits to RBC of the provision of this service to WBC included:

·         Reducing costs for RBC tenants by benefitting from economies of scale and sharing overhead costs.

·         Putting the service on a good footing to take advantage of any new trading opportunities due to its experience in the provision of a commercial service.

·         Joint learning between the authorities on tenant consultation and best practice.

Resolved -

That the Assistant Director of Housing & Communities in consultation with the Lead Councillor for Housing, Assistant Director of Legal & Democratic Services and  Director of Finance, be authorised to enter retrospectively into a further extension of the Response Housing Maintenance and Response Housing Engineering Maintenance Partnering Agreement with Wokingham Borough Council for a period of two years, expiring on 31 March 2025 and to negotiate and agree various variations to the terms and conditions as proposed by both parties as detailed in the report.