Agenda item

Report of the City Surveyor.

The Committee received a report of the City Surveyor regarding the additional works programme, a provisional list of cyclical projects being considered for the Hampstead Heath, Highgate Wood and Queen’s Park in 2015/16.  The, Assistant Director Building Surveying told the Committee that the 2015/16 list included 120 projects and represented a significant budget increase from 2014/15.

The Assistant Director continued to explain that projects are ranked  by priority level after having conducted an initial assessment on the basis of condition. The initial assessment placed individual projects on to a works list for the appropriate year, after which other factors were considered such as property status, health and safety and reputational impact.  The Assistant Director also explained that the level of funding provided to carry out the works programme depended entirely on the views of the Resource Allocation Sub-Committee, to which the Chairman noted that previously 100% of the required funding had been granted by the Committee.

Following the Assistant Director’s introduction a Member queried whether the cost of works quoted in the report were received from contractors. The Assistant Director replied that there had not been a tender process but the costs were estimated using the professional judgement of Officers in the City Surveyor’s Department.  The Assistant Director also reassured the Committee that there was flexibility within the budget to meet costs if after the tender process the estimated cost was not correct.  The Director of Open Spaces asked the Committee to note that there may be some impact to the works programme following a strategic review of the budgets, which could result in reviewing the method by which some works projects would be conducted.

A Member also asked for clarification on how the projects were prioritised and asked whether Members were involved in deciding which projects were priorities.  The Assistant Director of Building Surveying explained that priority was decided using a scoring system, after which the ranking given to each works project was reviewed widely by Chief Officers.  The feedback received was then used by a review panel to amend the rankings before the works programme was presented to the Corporate Assets Sub-Committee.

RESOLVED: That the Committee note the provisional 2015/16 works programme.