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Short Notice Inspection
22 September 2010Short notice inspection results
“Johnnie” Johnson Housing recently underwent an inspection by the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission is responsible for inspecting housing associations on behalf of the regulator – the Tenant Services Authority - to check that good services are being delivered to customers.
The team of inspectors looked at the following services:
· Landlord services
· Empty property management
· Service charge setting
· Complaints handling
For those areas of service the inspectors also looked at:
1. Access and Customer Care - how easy it is for customers to use our services and how do we treat our customers?
2. Diversity - what we do to make sure that all our customers - regardless of their age, gender, disability, ethnic group, sexuality and faith - get a good service.
3. Value for money - are we providing a quality service that is cost effective?
The Audit Commission has provided the Trust with an interim report which includes their initial assessments of how good our services are.
A summary of the results is shown in the table below.
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How Good is the Service?
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Assessment
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Tenant Involvement and Empowerment
Standard - Access and Customer Care
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Balance of strengths and weaknesses
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Tenant Involvement and Empowerment
Standard - Diversity
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Balance of strengths and weaknesses
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Tenancy Standard - Management of
Empty Properties
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Weaknesses outweigh strengths
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Tenancy Standard - Service Charge setting
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Strengths outweigh weaknesses
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Value for Money Standard
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Balance of strengths and weaknesses
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The Audit Commission has identified a number of strengths in our services, and has identified a number of areas where we still need to improve.
“Johnnie” Johnson Housing Chief Executive, Jim Lunney, said:
“We always welcome views on our performance and regularly subject the organization to the scrutiny of respected external assessment. That is why we hold the standards for Investors in People, the Charter Mark for Excellence, and the Sunday Times Best Companies one star rating. It is important to recognize that the Audit Commission assessment is based on a very narrow range of scrutiny and not on the service we provide overall. The proper assessment for that lies with our own residents who consistently score satisfaction levels of over 90%, putting us among the top performing housing associations nationwide. We will therefore use the feedback from the Audit Commission as the basis for a constructive dialogue with our residents, and to frame plans for improvements where these are necessary. We accept that we can always find room for improvement, and will continue to strive to do so.
This was among the first Audit Commission inspections to be conducted based on the new standards developed by the Tenant Services Authority. It was therefore very much a test of how the very different approaches of the two organizations could be welded together in a real inspection. So before regarding the inspection judgment as valid, the process itself will require validation. This may be made more difficult by the recent government announcements that the Audit Commission is to be scrapped and the Tenant Services Authority faces a review of its future. This uncertainty surrounding the future of inspection and regulation is unhelpful to all the parties involved, and needs early resolution.”
We are currently developing, in consultation with our residents, an Action Plan to address the areas that we can improve on.
If you are interested in being involved in any area of service improvement then we would love to hear from you. Please email us here.
You can view the full report by clicking here.
All residents will receive a letter from the Audit Commission explaining the results of the inspection. To view the letter, click here.
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