Главы жилищного управления Дадли потратили почти £1 млн на консультантов ради безопасности домов

Dudley housing chiefs defend spending nearly £1m on consultants Bosses say they would rather spend nearly £1m on consultants to meet safety report targets than risk dire consequences Dudley Council's housing chiefs defended a decision to spend almost a million pounds on consultants to ensure homes were safe. At a meeting of the authority's Housing and Assets Scrutiny Committee on July 14, councillors debated a decision to appoint external experts after the council was hit with notices from the housing regulator relating to breaches of housing legislation. The total cost of paying consultants adds up to £805,000 plus VAT which Dudley cabinet member for development and regulation, Cllr Daniel Bevan, says is money well spent. Read more: Dudley Council says social media comments ban is to stop questions overload Read more: We visited the 'haunted' Midland pub where landlord was 'pushed by a ghost' Cllr Bevan said: "The decision was taken to secure specialist building safety and compliance expertise while the council was still dealing with significant regulatory requirements. "This isn't consultancy for convenience, it is a time limited and necessary intervention to maintain continuity, meet regulatory demands, support tenant safety and fill a gap in expertise while we move towards a stronger and more permanent operating model. "I welcome scrutiny but my view is the risk of not securing these skills was significantly greater than the cost of doing it." Read more: Secret to getting the best of BirminghamLive's stories The committee was also told around 70 percent of local authorities had been affected by changes in the law relating to housing standards and there was a significant shortage of experts to ensure compliance with new legislation. The first regulatory notices on buildings were issued to Dudley Council in April 2023 at which point there were a number of problems including 8,000 outstanding fire risk assessments, 4,004 outstanding domestic electrical safety checks and 18,284 non-compliant smoke or carbon monoxide alarms. All the outstanding issues have been resolved apart from seven electrical safety tests which are in properties where tenants are not allowing council officers access to their premises. A report signed by Kathryn Jones, Dudley group director of housing and assets, said: "The council has moved from a position of identified issues to one of demonstrable control, strengthened assurance, and improving outcomes." Don't miss the biggest and breaking stories by signing up to the BirminghamLive newsletter here Day in day out, our reporters in the BirminghamLive newsroom bring you stories from across the West Midlands. However, a hell of a lot happens here and it can be difficult to stay on top of it all. That is why we have a suite of newsletters, tailored to your needs. They include Birmingham Politics, Nostalgia, Court and Crime Updates and, of course, BirminghamLive Daily - the biggest stories of the day sent at morning, lunch and evening. There are also local ones like Black Country News, MySolihull and MySuttonColdfield. Choose which newsletters best suit you. You can also get all your favourite content from BirminghamLive on WhatsApp. Click here to sign up for breaking updates about the biggest stories in the region. If you prefer reading our stories on your phone, consider downloading the BirminghamLive app. You can get it from Apple here and for Android here. And finally, if there is a story you think our journalists should be looking into, we want to hear from you. Email us on [email protected].