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Three stars for starters
• AS residents will by now be aware, Homes for Islington (HfI) has had its inspection result from the Audit Commission, which has rated it as three stars.
Despite what our critics may want to believe, this is good news for residents. It ensures the money we received for the Decent Homes work is secure; puts us in a position where we can bid for money to invest in new housing; and improves the organisation’s reputation, which allows us to attract high-quality candidates for jobs that will bring vital skills and experience that will help us improve further.
This isn’t the end of the process for us. It is just another step on the journey. What has been overlooked in some of the commentary is that the Audit Commission also rates us as having excellent prospects for improvement. There is still work to be done and progress to be made and our commitment to improve remains as strong as ever.
We asked for a mock audit 18 months ago so we could get the input of the professional auditors to highlight areas for improvement and ensure we worked on them. This allowed us to improve those areas where the Audit Commission found weaknesses and allowed us to focus on the problems they identified. This activity is good news for residents.
We have seen year-on-year improvements in tenants’ satisfaction levels but we want them to be higher and we can only achieve that by working with tenants’ and residents’ associations and residents, and by continuing to tackle problems.
Over the next two years we will invest hundreds of millions of pounds improving the housing stock to ensure all homes meet the Decent Homes standard by 2010. We helped to establish a new Independent Leaseholders Association.
We intend to work with Islington Council, our partners and our residents to prove that this is a three-star service and demonstrate that the faith placed in our ability to improve is justified.
We believe it will be and that it will be demonstrated through improving services and higher satisfaction rates among tenants and leaseholders.
Adam Borrie
Chair of the Board, Homes for Islington |
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