HEART Of Wales Property Service (HOWPS) has had a "tough start" according to its chairman, Phil Oads.

The company is a joint venture between Powys County Council and Keir Facilities Services Ltd and its purpose is to repair and maintain the housing, public and commercial buildings that were looked after by the council.

They look after 5,400 homes and 630 properties in the county.

On Wednesday, October 17, the Learning, Skills and Economy Scrutiny Committee will look at the report in detail.

The Joint Venture started in July 2017 after 109 workers were transferred to the company by TUPE.

Work has been carried out from the three former council bases in Brecon, Llandrindod Wells and Newtown.

A briefing note for the Committee on HOWPS says: "The purpose of this scrutiny session is to examine the annual report and identify area where further explanation of the position may be needed.

"It will be appropriate to seek assurance that the joint venture has an appropriate understanding of the current position, the areas identified for improvement are appropriate along with the time frame for addressing these and finally that there is sufficient capacity and expertise to make these improvements ."

In the HOWPS annual report, chairman Phil Oades said: "It is fair to say that it has been a tough start to the joint venture and that early relationships were rocky at times, which were not helped by many board level changes.

"However, more collaboration and true partnership working is starting to emerge, this all bodes well for the future.

"It is important that 2018/19 delivers a more stable working platform to enable the foundations for sustainable growth to emerge that support our future aspirations."

During the next year, HOWPS say that they will focus on trying to do most of the work themselves, becoming less reliant on sub-contractors.

They also aim to recruit seven apprentices.

During the past year they have:

completed 17,640 housing repairs

completed 8,880 corporate and farms repairs

completed 400 voids repairs

completed 736 emergency call outs

achieved an average customer satisfaction score of 92.37 per cent with the Housing Service

achieved and average customer satisfaction score of 96.17 per cent with the Corporate Reactive Service.