FIFE'S Lib Dems have hit out over Fife Council's “probable loss” of more than £1million due to private home owners not paying their share of mutual repairs.

Following last week's executive committee meeting, Councillor Tim Brett, Fife Lib Dem leader, slammed the local authority, saying “council tenants have been subsidising owner-occupiers and private tenants”.

John Mills, head of housing services, had admitted the “probable loss” of a “six- or seven-figure” because the new owners of former council flats had not paid their share of repair bills.

Cllr Brett said, “As people will be aware, the right to buy mechanism has been in place for many years, since the 1981 Tenants' Rights Act.

“It has long been recognised that when the council sold council properties under the Right to Buy scheme, the new owners would have to take responsibility for repairs to their properties.

“I was therefore very surprised to be told by Mr Mills that a six-figure or a seven-figure sum had probably been lost to the council, due to the fact that there had not been in place proper mechanisms to ensure that private owners were paying their share of common repairs.

“While I welcome the fact that procedures are now being put in place to ensure that this does not happen in future, I am very concerned at the loss of income to the council.

“Effectively this has meant that council tenants have been subsiding owner occupiers and private tenants, which cannot be right.”

Cllr Brett is now calling for the council's internal audit team to look into the matter.

He continued, “I and other elected members had been aware that there were often delays in getting repairs carried out when there were shared ownership issues but I had always assumed that owners would have been paying their fair share of the bill. I do not understand why this has been allowed to go on for so long.

“I will be writing to the chair of the standards and audit committee, suggesting that the council’s internal audit team should look into this, as especially at the present time Fife Council should be ensuring that all income owed to it is collected.”

Head of housing John Mills said the six- to seven-figure sum was a estimate of potential income to the council's housing revenue account, based on previous repairs carried out and not recharged to owners.

He continued, “Since taking over as Head of Housing in March 2015, I have led a review of the Mutual Owners team as costs of smaller repairs involving owners properties had not been recovered effectively.

Following our service review, we have sought the involvement of councillors through the housing and building services policy advisory group (PAG).

“The recommendations from the PAG included a review of contact centre procedures and training for frontline staff in all local offices to help identify a shared repair at reporting stage.”

He added that two additional staff had been recruited to the mutual repairs team.

“This has resulted in an average of three additional mutual repairs per week being identified and referred to the mutual owners Team.

“It is estimated that further six mutual repairs will be identified at point of reporting by the contact centre, and it is anticipated that this will be in place by the end of the year.

“An additional housing maintenance officer will also be in post by the end of October 2015.

“The report to executive committee was to confirm that action has been taken to successfully improve performance of the council in this key area.”