The report identifies several examples of good practice at the Association. These include a partnership with two other Housing Associations and the Local Authority to establish a housing register specifically for people with a physical disability who were seeking to move to alternative accommodation. The Association also encourages resident involvement through a range of opportunities, and ensures new tenants receive information about options available to them. They also produced a wide range of bi-lingual service information leaflets that were clear about the standards of service to be expected, enabling easy access to information by tenants.

The Association has identified opportunities to improve in some service areas. For example, it has evaluated its arrangements for debt prevention and has identified that it needs to extend the range of advice services available. The report makes two recommendations on areas for further improvement:

• develop access to debt prevention and income maximisation advisory services and raise awareness of its availability to all tenants; and
• provide clear information for those who may be suspended from consideration for housing to explain the reason for suspension, the action they may need to take and arrangements for appeal against suspension decisions.

Jeremy Colman, Auditor General for Wales, said today:

“I am pleased that Cynon Tâf Housing Association is providing mainly good services and has an excellent relationship with its tenants. The Association just needs to develop some areas of its rents service to bring it in line with the other service areas. Implementation of the recommendations in my report should help to address this.”