Learn from lessons of the past, councillors urged

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Calls have been made for a review into the setting up of the Heart of Wales Property Services (HOWPS) and to learn from the mistakes made in the past.

The joint venture will be taken over by Powys County Council next month after a contract break clause between the council and Kier construction was activated five years before it was due to end.

HOWPS carries out repairs and maintenance on Powys’ housing stock – 5,400 homes and 630 other properties – but problems have dogged to joint venture since its inception in 2017, which has caused the partnership to be continually questioned by councillors.

The contract was set to run until 2027 but the break clause, which allows either party to terminate the partnership in July 2022, was invoked by the council last year.

At a meeting of the Governance and Audit committee on Monday, vice-chairman and lay-member John Brautigam said “there were a couple of issues left over from the previous administration”.

“There has been a joint working group with the ERCS committee (Economy, Residents and Communities scrutiny committee) looking at HOWPS,” he said.

“It’s the consensus that once this transfer is finished next month that we really ought to have a lessons learned exercise from HOWPS.

“It is important and needs to be done as we have other things like the local authority company which we set up but hasn’t actually traded.”

He believed that learning lessons from how HOWPS was set up would help the council in the setting up of arms-length bodies before they are launched.

Committee chairwoman and lay member, Lynn Hamilton, asked how that could be dealt with and put on the work calendar for the committee.

Scrutiny manager and head of democratic services Wyn Richards said that a discussion can take place between himself, both Ms Hamilton and Mr Brautigam as well as Jane Thomas the council’s head of finance, to “schedule” the issue into the work calendar for the committee.

Earlies in the meeting, Ms Hamilton had been congratulated after she had been installed as the new committee chairwoman.

The meeting is the first of the new five-year council term and lay members are expected to chair this committee.

HOWPS employs up to 150 people with teams based in Llandrindod Wells, Newtown and Brecon and it is expected they will be transferred back to work for the council.