Ards District Housing Plan 2013 - Northern Ireland Housing Executive

3.5 Objective 4 - Delivering quality services
We recognise the importance of working closely with
local communities and their representatives. The
changes to the structure of local and regional
management will not affect service delivery. To
understand our customers’ needs we use techniques
such as customer surveys, whilst also comparing the
quality and efficiency of our services with other
organisations. The following processes identify areas
for improvement:
We are currently
reviewing the Housing
Selection Scheme. A
consultation paper
proposes amendments to
the rules to align it with
changes in housing
benefit, in light of welfare
reform.
• The Continuous Tenant Omnibus Survey (CTOS) provides a comprehensive socioeconomic
profile of Housing Executive tenants and their views and attitudes to
service provision;
• We accredit the performance of our
services through a number of
frameworks such as Customer Service
Excellence; external validation from
the European Foundation for Quality
Manager; Investors in People; and we
hold a number of ISO 9001
accreditations;
• We operate a two stage complaint
scheme for our customers.
DSD has commissioned a fundamental review of the Allocations Policy for social
housing. This will ensure that current procedures for accessing the waiting list and
allocating social housing make the most effective use of limited public resources to
identify and meet housing need.
We will continue to administer housing benefit prior to the phased transfer to
universal credit between 2014 and 2017. We have spent £1.511 million on
Discretionary Housing Payments to 7,906 claimants to ease financial hardship in
South Region during 2012/13.
Table 5: South East Area housing benefit performance at March 2013
Target
Actual
Clear housing benefit new claims within 25 days 26 days
Clear housing benefit change of circumstances within 8 days 7.66 days
Action plan 2013/14
• Manage services in a cost effective manner;
• Complete the review of the Housing Selection Scheme;
• Administer housing benefit and Discretionary Housing Payments;
• Provide grant applicants with copies of our grants newsletter;
• Update and implement our Learning and Development Strategy;
• Update and implement the People Strategy;
• Maintain an excellent, well-trained and highly motivated workforce.
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