Audit Commission report on Homes for Islington

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p 52 London Borough of Islington - Homes for Islington (ALMO) 321 HFI carries out an annual survey of tenants and leaseholders that informs the SDP and DSPs and the results of the satisfaction surveys are <strong>report</strong>ed to board directors to set the strategic priorities for the following year’s business plan. There are also surveys following each major work scheme and this informs which contractors are used for future schemes. A small sample percentage of tenants are also telephoned by both Caxtons and HFI to collect additional feedback. The results of this survey are analysed and <strong>report</strong>ed to the repairs policy group and repairs service improvement group on a six monthly basis. 322 However there is no systematic monitoring and assessment of the impact of some activities to deal with antisocial behaviour, such as diversionary schemes, and early intervention, to ensure that the most appropriate action is taken. In addition, satisfaction surveys of complainants of ASB are not carried out, nor exit surveys of tenants that leave, consequently there is no learning from the experience of residents to inform future plans. How good are the current improvement plans? 323 HFI have robust short and long term plans. Plans are formulated from the outcomes of BVRs, resident and staff feedback, from core objectives and business needs. However there are too many short term plans and they are not all aligned effectively. This is recognised and being addressed by HFI in the 2005/06 planning process. 324 The approach taken by HFI allows residents to be involved in a continuous process of improvement. The IP sets out short term improvements and how services will be delivered in the longer term. There are four service delivery plans, one for each division plus a customer care LSIP that includes improvements that come out of feedback and customer complaints. These form the link between HFI’s business plan (BP) objectives, team plans and individual appraisal targets. There are individual action plans to deal with weak areas of service delivery highlighted in our previous <strong>report</strong> that underpin the HFI IP. For example these include: a TMO improvement plan that includes improvements to the management agreement, capital works and development of new TMOs; a service charge arrears strategy to improve annual service charge collection and as a result arrears have reduced significantly in 2004/05; a gas servicing IP to implement a range of initiatives to improve gas servicing levels, that is now showing positive results in performance; a governance IP produced following an audit of HFI’s governance arrangements by an external consultant in the summer of 2004; and a community centres’ IP to address issues such as health and safety, DDA compliance across over 50 community centres and flats. 325 There is a 30 year business plan in place that the Government office for London assessed as fit for purpose and from this the board, through the business planning process, sets the objectives and priorities for the following year. There are medium and longer term objectives and plans are resourced. 326 There is a robust and timely business planning process that links in with the council’s process to ensure that the council objectives are cascaded into HFI’s business and service delivery plans. The board are integrating service and resource planning into a revised business planning (BP) model for 2004/05.
London Borough of Islington - Homes for Islington (ALMO) p 53 This BP responds to changes in the stock relating to the PFI 2 initiative that will see the loss from direct management by HFI of 3,600 dwellings, stock transfers out of local authority ownership and the transferring back of the management functions currently carried out by Hyde Northside. There is a lead out strategy developed by Hyde to ensure the smooth transfer of staff and service continuity when this contract ends. The plan covers performance maintenance; finance and budgets; human resource (HR); media management; resident participation; accommodation, records and file maintenance. Hyde and HFI have named people responsible and meet regularly to keep this on track. 327 There are plans to meet the business needs of the organisation, for example there is a HR and a communication plan to respond to the strategic functions of an employer and a business. That has seen the restructuring of HR to respond to the communications portfolio to ensure there is the strategic capacity to provide a corporate communications function. There is also future planning to deal with the need for a new IT system for payroll and to review the SLA with the council for payroll services and a clear understanding of priorities for HR. The board understand that there is a need to ensure that EOP issues are addressed throughout the staffing structure to ensure that organisation reflects local community and builds capacity among staff under represented at different levels of the organisation. They have agreed to build on positive work done by the council for front line staff and roll it out to all levels through the IIP management and leadership process. 328 HFI has risk assessed plans and built in contingencies for those plans where either the risks are high or the impact great. For example, a high impact risk such as not accessing additional ALMO funding has a robust contingency plan that has been developed by the council with HFI. In addition Hyde has developed the lead out plan with HFI for the smooth handover of this contract. 329 HFI’s service plan sets out a clear mission, vision, values and objectives and these have been clearly communicated to staff and tenants. There are six objectives which HFI is seeking to achieve: deliver an excellent housing service and achieve at least two stars; maximise customer involvement and empowerment; value diversity throughout the organisation; deliver investment to meet the Decent Homes Standard target by 2010 and the Homes for Islington standard by 2015; ensure staff development, financial management and other systems are in place to deliver high quality services; and increase and develop partnership working with the council and its other partners to achieve corporate objectives on regeneration and sustainability. 330 The plans all have actions that are resourced, have a clear time scale and lead officer responsible for delivery. As detailed later there are robust performance management arrangements in place to ensure the delivery of these plans. The organisation’s self assessment shows that HFI are self aware and have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses that will assist them in focusing future plans. 331 However, because there are so many plans the links between the SDP, IP and other plans are unclear and may result in key tasks being omitted. For example there the transfer of gas no-access to tenancy services was not included in the technical service divisional plan but was tasked to the division in IP. Plus a number of timescales have slipped from the IP into the service plans which indicates that plans have not been aligned effectively.
Page 1 and 2: Inspection report
Page 3 and 4: Summary London Borough of Islington
Page 5 and 6: London Borough of Islington - Homes
Page 7 and 8: Recommendations London Borough of I
Page 9 and 10: © Audit C
Page 11 and 12: The service London Borough of Islin
Page 13 and 14: How good is the service? London Bor
Page 45 and 46: Service charges London Borough of I
Page 51: London Borough of Islington - Homes
Page 59 and 60: Summary London Borough of Islington
Page 61 and 62: Documents reviewed London Borough o
Page 63 and 64: Gary Doolan GMB London Borough of I
Page 65 and 66: Positive practice London Borough of

Audit Commission report on Homes for Islington

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