Swansea Housing Association is providing mainly good services to its tenants and has excellent arrangements in place for housing people with support needs. A report, published today by the Auditor General, says the Association has a customer-centred culture, is letting properties quickly and efficiently and is encouraging and driving continuous improvement in all activities. The Association, which serves the Swansea and Neath Port Talbot areas, is providing a ‘satisfactory’ maintenance service but has no specific targets for post repair inspection and should improve the way it records information on completed jobs.

There are a number of recommendations on areas for further development, including:

•  Providing tenants with information about how the association is meeting the service standards it has set;

• Providing written confirmation that an applicant is registered for re-housing;

• Ensuring that the Board receives reports on cases suspended from the Housing Register; and

• Informing tenants occupying properties unable to achieve the Welsh Housing Quality Standard of Assembly expectations and Association proposals.

The report also includes examples of good practice at the Association, which can be applied across the housing sector. These include services to older people, where ‘wellbeing visits’ to all tenants over the age of 75 help to identify current and future needs in terms of health, safety and ensuring homes met tenants’ needs among others. The Association also actively engages residents through surveys, face-to-face contact and focus groups to identify areas that need improving. Also, the Association actively promotes diversity and its city living schemes has contributed to the regeneration of central areas, through the integration of accommodation and commercial premises.

Commenting on the report, Auditor General Jeremy Colman said today,

“Swansea Housing Association should be congratulated for the service it is providing to its tenants. If it reviews its maintenance service and implements the other recommendations, then I am confident that the Association will be able to provide consistently good services to its tenants. I urge other Associations in Wales to take note of the good practice I have identified in this report and develop the principles to match their own situations.”

Notes to Editors:

• The inspection of Swansea Housing Association was carried out in February 2006. At the time of the inspection, it was providing 2,900 homes in the City and County of Swansea and the County Borough of Neath Port Talbot.
• The Association is non-profit and was formed in 1978. It operates in the Swansea and Neath Port Talbot areas.
• The Association is part of the Swansea Housing Group along with Swansea Hillside Housing Association which acts as a vehicle for Homebuy sales. The focus of this inspection was Swansea Housing Association.  
• The Welsh Assembly Government has appointed the Wales Audit Office to carry out the inspection of housing associations in Wales. Inspection is carried out under the Local Government Act 1998, as amended by the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004.
• The specific questions about each aspect the inspection covers are set out in the latest version of the Assembly Regulatory Code for Housing Associations in Wales. This can be found by clicking on the following link: http://new.wales.gov.uk/topics/housingandcommunity/housing/publications/
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• The Wales Audit Office is independent of government and is responsible for the annual audit of some £19 billion of annual public expenditure.
• The Wales Audit Office was created in April 2005 through the Public Audit (Wales) Act, 2004, which expanded the functions of the Auditor General for Wales and enabled the transfer of staffs from the Audit Commission in Wales and National Audit Office in Wales to his employment.

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For more information please contact Lisa Smyth on 029 2026 2673 or email lisa.smyth@wao.gov.uk