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Newport Housing Trust has faced a number of significant challenges since it was established in 2001 and an inspection report, published today by the Auditor General says some progress and improvement has been made in that time. At the time of the inspection in January 2006 the Trust had been focussing its activity on the regeneration of prefabricated bungalows and had significantly improved the quality of its homes. However, landlord services were under-developed and the report found scope for further improvement across a range of services, which were found to be of variable quality.
The Trust is providing satisfactory services in three out of eight key areas, and is rated good in its approach to providing housing. But the report says that the Trust has considerable scope for improvement in its relationship with residents, its lettings and maintenance services, and is failing to comply with the regulatory code in its equal opportunities arrangements.
The report makes 20 recommendations on areas for further development, including:
- Encouraging resident involvement through providing accessible and clear information;
- Developing an equal opportunities policy and racial harassment policy;
- Developing a Welsh Language Scheme;
- Developing systems to identify residents with additional support needs and monitoring the quality of services provided to them by the Trust’s Managing Agent;
- Setting appropriate and challenging targets for all areas of service, ensuring that it has robust and effective arrangements in place to evaluate performance; and
- Implementing effective monitoring systems that enable it to demonstrate a fair balance in housing allocations.
The report also found weaknesses in the Trust’s processes and performance. For example, the Trust had a clear strategic direction, but could not ensure that all strategic objectives were being met because of the absence of robust delivery plans. Also, weaknesses in performance management meant that the Trust was not well placed to ensure continuous improvement in all its activities and lacked the evidence to demonstrate improvements in its services.
Jeremy Colman, Auditor General for Wales, said today:
“Newport Housing Trust has improved the physical quality of its homes. Now it needs to develop its landlord services so that residents have access to a full range of good quality services. The Trust is seeking to address issues in the short term and I am confident that my recommendations will help it achieve further improvements.”
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