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NORTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL HOUSING INSPECTION REPORT

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its inspection report on North Ayrshire Council. It awarded the Council an ‘excellent ’ rating for its housing management, a “fair” rating for its asset management and repairs and a ‘good’ rating for services to homeless people.

The purpose of inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of housing service delivery, and make recommendations to help improvement.

North Ayrshire Council is situated in west central Scotland, with a population of 136,000 people. It owns 13,665 properties.

Michael Cameron, Head of Inspection at The Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“Our inspectors found that North Ayrshire Council has demonstrated continuous improvement in a number of important service areas, has an excellent performance management framework and has a strong culture that supports tenants and encourages participation.

“It has strengths in a number of its services: it is excellent at maximising its income, it is good at dealing with anti-social behaviour, and it secures accommodation quickly for homeless people. It also completes repairs quickly.

“The council needs to significantly improve its approach to how it plans and manages investment to its houses and it also needs to demonstrate that it achieves value for money for its tenants across all of its repairs contracts.

“However, we are confident that the Council will address its weaknesses through both an improvement plan, which it will send to The Scottish Housing Regulator, and its own process of continuous improvement.”

Councillor David O’Neill, leader, North Ayrshire Council, said:

“We have put a lot of hard work into the management of our housing stock and this focused effort and expertise has paid off.

“Only one other council in Scotland has achieved an ‘A’ grade for its housing management service in the last five years so this is an outstanding achievement.

“Right through, from talking to our tenants, resolving antisocial behaviour, working with our partners, completing repairs on time and helping homeless people we have achieved very high standards.

“Where we need to improve we will. The inspectors recognised a readiness to address the areas where we need to do better and a will to do so.

“This verdict is a tribute to our staff and shows we are delivering good quality service to our tenants.”

NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Inspectors gave the following grade:

2. Full details of the North Ayrshire Council inspection report 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. As a government agency The Scottish Housing Regulator will have complete operational independence, but will remain accountable to Scottish Ministers, and through them to the Scottish Parliament for the standard of its work. The agency sits within the Justice and Communities Directorate of the Scottish Government and will work within the government’s overall purpose and contribute to its strategic objectives.