Audit Commission

Kensington Housing Trust (KHT) is delivering a good repairs service and is working effectively to ensure that it meets its legal obligations to ensure the safety of gas appliances in its tenants' homes. Overall, resident involvement is satisfactory but more could be done in this area. KHT is helping its customers access services but, again, more could be done to ensure that it fully understands what barriers are facing some of them.

Audit Commission inspectors concluded this following a short-notice inspection of how well the housing association provides general repairs and gas servicing and how effectively it involves its tenants in managing and improving services.

Ann Bennett, Audit Commission Lead Housing Inspector, said:

'Kensington has significantly improved its maintenance services in the last 12 months and is now providing a strong repairs service and is working effectively to meet its statutory obligations regarding gas safety. It is also developing better ways of working with all its tenants to ensure that it is meeting their needs. However, in a few important areas there is still some way to go before services match the best performing landlords.'

Strengths include:

• Customers have easy access to meet with staff, and are provided with high quality information and a wide range of service standards. Customer feedback processes are in place and help to develop service improvements. A programme of assessments is helping to identify any customers who are facing barriers to accessing services.
• Effective working relationships with contractor partners has produced a range of efficiency savings as well as improved services for customers
• Repairs are completed quickly and within target based on appointments which suit customers' needs. It is easy to request a repair and effective quality assurance processes are in place.
• The majority of gas appliances are serviced annually and effective formal steps are taken where access is not made available by tenants. The servicing programme is well managed and promoted to tenants.
• There are an increasing number or opportunities for residents to be involved; KHT listens to its tenants and has worked effectively to ensure that they engage with 'hard-to-reach' groups.

Weaknesses include:

• Telephone access to services has not always been good and is not consistently monitored.
• More needs to be done to help tenants understand the performance information they are presented with through the use of clear comparisons with other housing organisations.
• KHT has limited awareness of how its costs and service quality compares with other housing organisations and so cannot make robust value for money conclusions. Customers have had limited involvement in deciding how savings are to be reinvested.
• The service has not been effectively managing 'rechargeable' repairs.
• KHT is unaware of the impact of resident involvement or the level of satisfaction with current arrangements. Consultation on some important issues has been limited and there is not a clear and transparent process for tenants to become involved in some of the involvement structures.

To help the service improve, inspectors made a number of recommendations. These include:

• setting and achieving more challenging service standards in some key areas;
• improving the quality of performance reporting to customers;
• developing an effective approach to service comparisons with other organisations;
• involving customers more in monitoring value for money and investment decisions;
• measuring the impact of resident involvement;
• introducing procedures for the effective management of rechargeable repairs; and
• improving the out-of-hours repairs reporting service.

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

1. Kensington Housing Trust (KHT) is a subsidiary of the Catalyst Housing Group Limited (CHG) which also contains Catalyst Communities Housing Association and Fortunegate Community Housing. Overall the group owns and/or manages around 15,000 homes. The Chairs of each of the member companies sit on the Group Board along with independent directors and a nominee of the Group Residents' Federation. KHT's Board has eight independent representatives, four resident representatives and two co-optees. KHT also has a Customer Services Committee which consists of Board members (both independent and resident) and other resident volunteers to scrutinise performance and recommend policy and service changes.
2. KHT currently owns and manages 3,237 dwellings (of which 2,300 are 'general needs') which are located in the boroughs of Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster with a small number falling into the London Borough of Brent. There is an increasing proportion of elderly tenants (currently 26 per cent are aged between 45 and 84) and just over half are either 'White British' or 'Other White'. Almost half the households have at least one member with a disability.
3. 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'.
4. Within two months of the publication of this report, Kensington Housing 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 association's prospects for improvement.
5. The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog, driving economy, efficiency and effectiveness in local public services to deliver better outcomes for everyone.
6. 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.
7. 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