Excellent performance by Sheffield Homes lands up to £171 million for tenants
THOUSANDS more council tenants will benefit from the multi-million pound transformation of the city’s housing stock after Sheffield Homes, the organisation that manages Sheffield’s council-owned properties, was awarded top rating by the Audit Commission.
Sheffield Homes achieved the maximum three stars for providing ‘excellent’ housing management services following a rigorous inspection. Sheffield Homes is the only organisation in the country to achieve the excellent rating twice for its services to tenants.
The three star rating triggers up to £171m of additional funding from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to allow 22,000 more homes to benefit from Sheffield’s Decent Homes programme.
That means thousands of new windows, kitchens, bathrooms and central heating systems will be installed in homes in Stocksbridge, Chapeltown, Gleadless, Basegreen, Lowedges, Batemoor, Jordanthorpe, Darnall, Tinsley, Burngreave and Manor Castle areas.
Peter Morton, Chief Executive of Sheffield Homes, said: “The inspection is a ringing endorsement of the council’s approach to improving all its homes to the Decent Homes standard. I would like to thank councillors, board members, tenant representatives and staff for their contributions to this brilliant achievement.
“We are proud of the services we provide to customers and it is great to see this recognised by the Housing Inspectorate. Through the Decent Homes programme we are making huge improvements to neighbourhoods, the environment and the quality of life of our tenants.”
Sheffield Homes already has funding for Decent Homes improvements to 29,000 council homes after last year’s three star rating released £285m. Today’s news means all 53,500 council-owned homes will meet the Decent Homes standard by 2010.
The Audit Commission report found that Sheffield Homes was delivering an excellent service to its customers with promising prospects for further improvement.
Some areas singled out for particular praise by the inspectors were:
- Focus on value for money with many examples of savings and efficiencies.
- Strong customer-focused culture
- Customer satisfaction routinely monitored
- Strong rent collection performance and wide variety of ways to pay rent
- New caretaking service has improved estate management and estates are clean with landscape maintenance to high standards
- Strong culture of promoting and monitoring equality and diversity issues
- Capital investment programme meeting the Decent Homes standard
- and additional environmental improvements on schedule
- Responsive maintenance service delivering customer repair requests on time, by appointment and to a high standard
- Wide range of opportunities for tenant involvement and new Tenant Participation Compact (Agreement) in place
- Tenancy enforcement managed by Sheffield Homes’ Anti Social Behaviour Team has Trailblazer status
- Quality of void properties offered to customers for letting to agreed lettable standard with high customer satisfaction
- Supported and sheltered housing is effectively managed
Ends
Press contact: Neil Anderson on 01142 257080 (office).