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FALKIRK COUNCIL’S REPORT ON IMPROVEMENT PROGRESS

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its improvement progress report on aspects of Falkirk Council’s housing and homelessness services. The purpose of inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of housing and homelessness service delivery and make recommendations to help improvement.

The Regulator works jointly with Audit Scotland and the other regulators operating in Falkirk Council. This ensures that scrutiny activity is proportionate, risk based and targeted only on areas where scrutiny bodies have identified significant risks.

The published report does not reflect the Council’s performance in other aspects of its service delivery, where no significant risks were identified.

Lesley Kerr, Acting Head of Inspection at The Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“Falkirk Council has made good progress since our last inspection in 2008. The Council has introduced a number of new initiatives and important changes which have resulted in improved outcomes for its tenants and service users. Tenant groups and other partners spoke positively about these changes. Improvements have included a choice-based approach to letting homes using the Council’s new housing allocation policy, which reflects the statutory reasonable preference categories. The Council has improved its own awareness of its strengths and areas for improvement. There have been improvements to the homeless service, but progress has been less comprehensive than in the other service areas we assessed.”

Councillor Jim Blackwood, Convener of Housing and Social Care said:

“Tenants and service users are noticing a better housing service with many improvements across different areas. We have invested a great deal of time and resources to listening to what our tenants and residents want and how we can offer them services that they need. In particular, our ‘Homespot’ allocation system has made a big difference and is making sure that those with the highest housing need get the right properties that suit them.

“We cannot be complacent however, and the inspection has highlighted several areas where our performance is not up to standard.  We fully recognise these and are confident we can address them in line with the inspector’s recommendations.

“Overall we are pleased with our progress and the efforts of all our staff to provide a housing service that reflects our service user’s needs.”

Falkirk Council’s Assurance and Improvement Plan is published on Audit Scotland’s website.

NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Since Autumn 2009 Audit Scotland and the other scrutiny bodies have been taking a joint approach to planning scrutiny activity for local authorities that is proportionate and based on risk – the shared risk assessment process. The objectives of this approach are to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of scrutiny work and minimise the impact of scrutiny activity on the Council. The Assurance and Improvement Plan for Falkirk Council published on Audit Scotland’s website, set out the planned scrutiny activity for the Council for 2011/12 and included scrutiny by the Scottish Housing Regulator to review performance in perceived areas of risk.

2. Full details of the Falkirk Council report on improvement progress can be found on the Scottish Housing Regulator website at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk

3. The Scottish Housing Regulator came into operation on 1 April 2008. It is the successor to Communities Scotland’s Regulation & Inspection Division. It operates the powers and duties of the regulation of social housing which are set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001. The Scottish Housing Regulator is an arm’s length executive agency of the Scottish Government. It has operational independence, while being accountable to Scottish Ministers and through them to the Scottish Parliament for the standard of its work.

Read Falkirk Council’s Report On Improvement Progress