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GLASGOW HOUSING ASSOCIATION PROGRESS REPORT

The Scottish Housing Regulator today publishes its independent progress report on Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), eighteen months after its in-depth inspection set out recommendations for improvement. The report examines GHA’s progress in service improvement, governance, and business strategy.

Karen Watt, Chief Executive at the Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“GHA is becoming a better landlord. It has made real improvements in some of its services and is successfully changing the culture of the organisation to focus on customers and continuous improvement. And GHA has developed good principles of tenant empowerment with local housing organisations. GHA now needs to work with us to improve governance and review its options for the future in order to protect service improvements, fulfil its potential and secure the best outcomes for GHA’s tenants and for the city.”

At the time of the transfer, GHA was given the challenging task of changing the way its houses are owned and managed across the city, and substantial public funding, to improve the quality of local neighbourhoods and deliver community ownership. The regulator recognised how challenging this was at the time of its inspection in 2007 and recommended GHA review its overall purpose and direction, considering all options, and working this through with tenants, Glasgow City Council, the Scottish Government, and other stakeholders.

This progress report says that GHA has not led the review effectively. There were significant weaknesses in the way it was managed. In particular, GHA did not consider all options for its future and did not involve all key stakeholders effectively. As a result, the report says that GHA has not set a clear purpose or direction that key stakeholders understand and support, or that resolves the uncertainty about the future ownership of its houses.

The progress report sets out a number of requirements that GHA must now act upon. In particular, the report says GHA must work with the regulator to quickly strengthen its governance, and to properly review possible options for its future, engaging fully with all its key stakeholders. GHA has confirmed it will meet those requirements and will work with the regulator to effect necessary changes.

GHA Tenant Chair Sandra Forsythe said: “We welcome the Regulator’s clear recognition of the good progress we are continuing to make on improving services to tenants and factored homeowners.

“The audit clearly sets out what we have achieved in a short space of time and we welcome the Regulator’s endorsement of the hard work of our staff and tenant volunteers in transforming GHA into a customer-focused organisation.

“We are pleased the Regulator acknowledges that GHA is continuing to operate in a ‘challenging environment’ and we will continue to address the areas of improvement identified in this Audit and in the 2007 Inspection Report. This will include redoubling our efforts to establish effective working relationships with the City Council and Scottish Ministers and to strengthen our Board.

“We will also be taking forward a long-term strategic plan in conjunction with key stakeholders and building on the work done on tenant empowerment by the chairs of the Local Housing Organisations, which the Regulator recognises will be ‘valuable going forward’.”



NOTE TO NEWS EDITORS

1. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) is the separate agency that operates independently the regulation and inspection powers in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001 to:

• Protect the interests of current and future tenants, and other service users;

• Ensure the continuing provision of good quality social housing in terms of decent homes, good services, value for money and financial viability; and

• Maintain the confidence of funders.

2. The SHR published an in-depth inspection report on the performance of GHA in September 2007. Inspectors awarded GHA a “fair” or “C” grade for its performance.

3. The SHR carried out an audit to inform its view of GHA’s progress. In reviewing GHA’s progress, the SHR did not look at all areas of GHA’s performance, or all the activities examined as part of the 2007 inspection, or areas that are best examined at the end of year two of GHA’s improvement plan. The SHR looked at five important areas of GHA’s performance to inform its broader view of GHA’s progress:

• Improvements in service delivery

• The governance of the organisation

• Its fundamental review of purpose and onward business strategy

• Aspects of its financial performance and management

• Its management of the tendering and award of the contract for the repairs service

4. The full progress report can be found on the SHR website here

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