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PERTH AND KINROSS COUNCIL HOMELESSNESS SERVICE INSPECTION REPORT

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its re-inspection report on Perth and Kinross Council. Its inspectors awarded the Council a “good” rating for its Homelessness Service.

The purpose of re-inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness and progress of service delivery, following the award of “poor” ratings at a previous inspection, and make recommendations to help improvement.

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

“We found that Perth and Kinross Council has achieved significant improvements to many aspects of its service delivery since our previous inspection. The Council has responded well by successfully tackling the issues identified in our report.

The Council has a number of strengths in the delivery of its services. It has an excellent approach to providing advice and preventing homelessness. It is good at publicising the homelessness service, makes good assessment decisions, provides good quality temporary and settled accommodation and works well with its partners.

The Council is aware of the areas where further improvements are required and is working towards achieving these.

We saw that the Council has addressed the weaknesses we found in its homelessness service. Within a relatively short time frame, it has achieved significant improvement across its services and has demonstrated strong leadership, capacity and the drive to deliver its improvement plan objectives.”

Council Leader, Councillor Ian Miller, said: "Perth & Kinross Council is delighted with the findings in the inspection report. Reducing homelessness in Perth and Kinross has presented us with a major challenge, and it has been made very high priority for this Council. In response to the difficult situation we faced we have had to come up with a range of initiatives that expanded our capacity to meet the needs of people who present to us as homeless, and also improve our existing services.  I welcome the publication of this report, which illustrates the hard work and dedication of our staff to improve our homelessness service."  

NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Inspectors gave the following grades:

2. Full details of the Perth and Kinross re-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. 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.

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Iain Muirhead, Head of Policy and Corporate Services

0141 271 3760