Supplementary A - London Borough of Hillingdon

3. PROGRAMMES AND PLAN DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION
3.1 Gaps in the Provision of Property
3.1.1 The Council has identified its property related requirements from a wide range of work
undertaken both at a corporate level and within each Service. This has included:
• Identification of the maintenance backlog (Appendix F)
• Asbestos, DDA and Condition Surveys (Appendix J)
• Suitability Assessments (Appendix J)
• Consultation with users and stakeholders (Appendix K)
• Property Implications from Best Value Reviews
• Property implications from Service Plans and Service Reviews
This has enabled officers to identify and analyse the gaps between future requirements and
current provision and performance of the authority’s present property assets. From this analysis
the need to address the following gaps in property use and performance has been identified:
Corporate
• The Council’s Maintenance Backlog for 2006/07 is just under £23.5 million (of which
approximately £6.17 million relates to the Civic Centre) leading to a need to plan how to
address this. A figure of £1.45 million of maintenance backlog has been recently identified
for works relating to the Cedars and Grainges Car Park and this amount has been included
within the corporate figure of £23.5 million.
• Continuing to improve levels of utilisation of Council premises.
• Increasing shared use of property assets through closer working with Partners and the
voluntary sector.
• Modernising or disposing of expensive to maintain buildings to improve energy and water
efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.
• Extending e-delivery of services and change working practices leading to rationalisation of
Central and area offices.
• Appendix C shows the CPA assessment awarded to Hillingdon under Use of Resources
Judgement by the Audit Commission. To reach level 4 criteria, further work is needed to be
undertaken which involves:-
(i) A maintenance plan to address the significant maintenance backlog for the Council’s
assets.
(ii) Ensuring external benchmarking is conducted with meaningful results communicated to
stakeholders.
(iii) Availability of clear information to identify how asset management has contributed to
addressing identified gaps in property provision.
(iv) Development of clearer links between asset management information and relevant
organisational financial information
• The need to deliver two entrepreneurs incubator spaces during 2006/07 was identified by the
First Flight Young Entrepreneurs Programme developed by the Heathrow City Matrix Group.
The programme was designed to bring particular benefits to the Boroughs of Hillingdon,
Hounslow and Ealing. Two incubator units at the Hayes College Campus were opened in
2006. The Council and its partners Uxbridge College, Heathrow City and Mellow Lane
School are now preparing to develop another fourteen units, a further ten at the Hayes
campus and four at Mellow Lane School. Funding of £750,000 has been secured from the
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