A short-notice inspection was carried out of Incommunities limited a Bradford based housing association. The inspection looked at how the association is delivering response repairs, repairs to empty homes and gas servicing. It found it was easy for tenants to report repairs and repairs were completed quickly with high satisfaction. Empty homes are being repaired and let to a standard agreed with tenants, although the time taken to repair and let properties is too long and satisfaction is not high with new homes. Gas servicing is up-to-date.
A number of recommendations were made including, reviewing and updating service standards, improving complaint handling, agreeing timescales for completion of repairs, ensuring they develop a more comprehensive profile of tenants and involving tenants in assessing value for money.
Incommunities must now consult with its tenants on the recommendations and agree an action plan which will then inform a further report and judgement on the future prospects for improvement of Incommunities to be published at a later date.