For immediate release

18 September 2007

GLASGOW HOUSING ASSOCIATION INSPECTION REPORT

Inspectors have awarded Glasgow Housing Association a ‘fair’ or ‘C’ grade for its performance as a social landlord.

Communities Scotland, the social housing regulator, today publishes its independent inspection report on the performance of Glasgow Housing Association (GHA). This is the first indepth, independent assessment of the performance of GHA since it took ownership of over 80,000 houses from Glasgow City Council in 2003.

Karen Watt, director of Regulation & Inspection at Communities Scotland, said:

“Our inspectors found that GHA has met most of the promises it made to tenants at the time of the transfer ballot.

“Many thousands of tenants now have better homes as a result and many have been actively involved in decisions that affect their homes and neighbourhoods.

“Set against its strengths, GHA also has a number of areas – some significant – where it must improve.

“GHA is still a young organisation that operates in challenging circumstances, and it shows a strong commitment to improving.

“We found that the onward transfer of its houses to local organisations – known as second stage transfer (SST) – has been a major challenge. GHA should now lead a fundamental review of its purpose and future direction, including the future of SST.

“Tenants’ views will be important in establishing this future direction and GHA should aim to deliver for tenants by working with Scottish Ministers, Glasgow City Council and other stakeholders.”

The Regulator requires GHA to respond effectively to its recommendations and to agree an improvement plan to tackle all of the areas of weakness highlighted in the inspection report.

Sandra Forsythe, Tenant Chair of Glasgow Housing Association, commented:

“GHA Board takes its responsibilities seriously and we therefore welcome the inspection report and its thoroughness in exploring the many issues GHA has faced over the last four years.

“The inspectors acknowledge that GHA has shown a strong willingness to improve and we’ve already made a number of significant changes as a result of the inspection process. We are now setting up a team of GHA Board members, staff and tenant leaders to progress an Action Plan to address all the report’s recommendations; tackle the shortcomings identified and help us further develop the services we provide for our tenants.

“The report identifies tenant participation as a key strength for GHA, notes that our tenant satisfaction levels are increasing and acknowledges our considerable achievements in delivering on the key promises made to tenants at the ballot for stock transfer on massive improvements to homes and on repairs, rents and tenancy guarantees, neighbour relations and concierge services, tenant consultation and job creation.”

FURTHER INFORMATION

1. The aim of inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of performance and make recommendations to help improvement. Inspections are conducted within a published framework of Performance Standards. More information on Communities Scotland’s approach to inspection can be found on our website at Inspection.

2. Inspectors award a grade to summarise their inspection judgements. The grade and judgements are based on evidence. The grade summarises performance in the following ways:

Grade A = Excellent

Grade B = Good

Grade C = Fair

Grade D = Poor

3. The inspectors looked at how GHA is meeting the promises it made to tenants at the time of the transfer ballot, key elements of its service delivery to customers, the management of its assets, its strategic leadership and governance, and its business planning and management of resources.

4. The key findings from the inspection of GHA include:

• GHA has already met or is meeting most of the promises it made to tenants at the time of the transfer ballot.

• It is working towards its investment, demolition and new-build commitments and can afford these; however, at its current rate of progress, GHA is unlikely to have completed all the elements of these promises in the original target timescales.

• More of its tenants have become satisfied with GHA as a landlord over the last three years, and many more now think it is a caring and listening landlord.

• An important area of strength for GHA is tenant participation.

• It is poor at handling complaints from dissatisfied customers.

• It has some strengths in how it informs its customers.

• GHA has worked well to improve its response to customers with diverse needs.

• GHA was slow to understand the issues facing homeowners, and did not communicate or handle their complaints or queries well. It has now started a major exercise to identify how it can work better with owners.

• It has got better at responding to the needs of homeless people and is now improving how it works with the Council.

• More tenants are satisfied with its response repairs service and its contractor reports improving performance in completing repairs on target. However it does little effective, formal scrutiny of its response repairs contractor.

• GHA does not meet all its statutory and regulatory requirements on gas safety and managing asbestos.

• GHA delivers a large and complex investment programme, and it has put a significant level of investment into a large number of its tenants’ homes.

• We found weaknesses in its management of recently procured investment contracts, which puts at risk the benefits – including efficiency savings – these can bring.

• No SSTs have happened to date; but GHA has tried to make SST happen within its financial limits and the conditions set at the time of the transfer. There was no clear operational policy or timescale for delivering SST at the time of the transfer, and GHA and others had to develop the SST process from scratch.

• It has in the past raised stakeholders’ expectations about SST, but so have others.

• There is now a broader understanding about the difficulties in achieving SST and the financial barriers to progress. There is strong evidence that SST, as originally envisaged, is not possible within the current financial envelope.

• The current views of GHA’s tenants on SST are not well understood.

• Neither tenants nor other key stakeholders have had an explicit debate about whether SST is relevant or will give value for money, or whether other options would offer more for tenants, Glasgow, its housing system and national government objectives.

• GHA does not have a clear strategy that takes its business beyond achieving its transfer commitments.

• GHA’s constitutional arrangements were focused on achieving the transfer and establishing the organisation. It is less clear that these have enough of a strategic focus, or that they are right for the future.

• GHA’s business plan is well constructed and it has good budgeting, accounting and treasury management systems. But it annual budgets often exceed it expenditure, and it does not have a strong focus on value for money.

• GHA’s approach to developing its asset management strategy is a strength.

• GHA’s set up brings real challenges to managing performance in service delivery to its tenants. Both it and the local housing organisations (LHOs) have struggled to make this work effectively. But GHA still has considerable scope to tighten up the performance management arrangements with the LHOs.

• GHA followed good practice when procuring partnering contracts for its investment work recently, which bring the potential for significant efficiency savings.

• In its earlier years GHA had not always been accountable and open enough when procuring contracts and has not prioritised the need to show value for money.

• Its performance in collecting rent is poor and worsening. Its performance in letting empty houses is poor, but there has been some improvement over the last three years.

5. The inspection report sets out a number of over-arching recommendations:

• GHA should initiate and lead a fundamental review of its purpose and onward business strategy. This review should include considering the future of SST. In doing this, it must better understand the views of its tenants and build on the level of engagement they have had in decisions about their homes and communities. It must involve other stakeholders.

• Once it has determined its longer term business strategy, GHA should comprehensively review its governance arrangements to ensure that they support the organisation’s emerging direction and future business strategy.

• GHA should develop its capacity to manage its investment programmes, to get the most from its partnering arrangements and to ensure it is always clear and open when procuring investment and contracts.

• GHA must act quickly to establish strong and effective control of its response repairs service, and to meet all of its legal responsibilities for gas safety and managing asbestos.

• GHA needs to ensure that its budgets are realistic and that it focuses much more on value for money and identifying real savings.

• GHA should develop a clear and realistic strategy for improving its performance in collecting rent and letting empty properties.

• GHA should ensure that the current review of its work with owners delivers real improvements in services.

6. Communities Scotland’s inspection team was made up of its own inspectors, all experienced housing professionals, and experts from outside the agency, who brought a range of additional skills and knowledge to reflect the complexity of the inspection. In addition, five tenant assessors appraised elements of GHA’s website and its external focus and took part in a conference with GHA tenants.

7. Communities Scotland requires all organisations to respond effectively to our recommendations. We ask organisations that receive fair or poor assessments to submit an improvement plan to us within eight weeks of publication. This should show how it plans to respond. The plan is agreed with inspectors.

8. The inspection is the third of those into the large social landlords established by large scale stock transfers. Previous inspections have looked at Scottish Borders Housing Association and Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership.

9. The full report can be found on the regulation and inspection area of the Communities Scotland website at www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk

Communities Scotland was abolished on 1 April 2008. This is an archived site and the contents may no longer be accurate. If you are looking for information about housing and regeneration, please visit www.scotland.gov.uk For information about regulation and inspection, please visit www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk.

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