Peabody has made significant progress in the way that it involves its residents in shaping its services. The way that Peabody deals with gas safety is satisfactory, but its approach to responsive repairs is in need of significant improvement and there are weaknesses in the way that it responds to the needs of individual residents.
Audit Commission inspectors reached this conclusion after a short notice inspection of how well the London-based housing association involves residents, responds to repairs requests and undertakes gas safety checks.
The report shows that residents are frequently and regularly involved in deciding how Peabody operates and are able to influence both strategic decisions and decisions in their own neighbourhoods. However, although the approach to gas safety is strong, repairs are not being undertaken quickly or to a high standard.
Hugh Boatswain, Audit Commission senior manager, said:
'Peabody has worked hard to change the way that it involves residents. This has resulted in many more residents choosing to get involved in a way that suits them, leading to improvements to services. Although Peabody has plans to change the way that it carries out repairs in the future, at present the service is falling short of what we expect to see. Peabody also needs to make sure that it is aware of the particular needs of individuals and of diverse groups.'
Strengths include:
- resident involvement is valued by Peabody and the additional resources focussing on this have led to significant changes;
- most properties have had a recent gas safety check; and
- residents can get in touch by freephone from 8am to 8pm, making it easy to report repairs.
Weaknesses include:
- resident profile information is not used to routinely adjust services for individuals or groups or to analyse levels of satisfaction; and
- not all services offer value for money, with some having high costs, but low levels of satisfaction and performance.
To help the service improve, inspectors made a number of recommendations. These include:
- ensuring that repairs are completed to a high standard; and
- understanding the links between cost, performance and satisfaction and using this, in comparison with information from others, to drive improvements.
Peabody is now required to produce by working with its customers an action plan to address these recommendations.
The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) is the affordable housing regulator in England and works with the Audit Commission on the inspection of housing associations. The TSA commissions the Audit Commission to carry out inspections and the results are used by the TSA in its overall assessment of housing association performance.
Notes to editors
Peabody was set up in 1862 and registered with the Housing Corporation in 1974. As a registered charity it owns and manages almost 18,000 homes with stock spread across 27 London boroughs. Most of the stock is in Islington, Southwark, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth and Westminster. Although there are 900 supported housing properties, most of the stock is general needs.
Peabody works in areas of high demand and around 36 per cent of the population in the six core boroughs are from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities. Its mission statement is to "make London a city of opportunity for all by ensuring as many people as possible have a good home, a real sense of purpose and a strong feeling of belonging."
The Audit Commission introduced short-notice inspections for housing associations to give inspectors a clearer and more realistic view of the services that tenants receive.
Associations are given just five days notice of the inspection before their services are rated on a four point scale - from ‘strengths significantly outweigh weaknesses’ down to ‘weaknesses outweigh strengths’.
Within two months of the publication of this report, the Peabody Trust will provide the Audit Commission with a plan showing how it will implement the report’s recommendations. The Commission will then assess and publish the Peabody Trust's prospects for improvement.
The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone.
Our work across local government, health, housing, community safety and fire and rescue services means that we have a unique perspective. We promote value for money for taxpayers, auditing the £200 billion spent by 11,000 local public bodies.
As a force for improvement, we work in partnership to assess local public services and make practical recommendations for promoting a better quality of life for local people.
For further information please contact: Chloe Morales Oyarce, Regional Communications Manager (London) on 0844 798 2095