Halton Housing Trust (HHT) fully embraces the principle of inspection as a key driver of service improvement. We welcome the challenge, feedback and recommendations the Audit Commission have provided in addition to the positive reflection of our journey to date which reflected our own self assessment position. We are ensuring that all the issues raised during both the on site and post site/ report
stages are being fully captured and used to further improve the quality of the services we provide to our customers.

The progress the organisation has achieved is positively reflected in the report. The judgement demonstrates that the Trust has come a long way in just two years and reflects the commitment of our employees and Board to provide homes and services where we put customers first. The report provides us with an independent appraisal of our progress from an acknowledged low starting point.

We are committed to continually improving what we do and how we do it which is reflected in our organisational strapline of ‘delivering quality and excellence for all’. The report confirms that we have laid the foundations upon which we can now build our longer term plans and success.

The Trust’s Corporate Plan from 2009 onwards will use the inspection report findings as a basis for establishing future organisational priorities. The Trust is also developing a clear framework for service review and improvements to both the range and quality of performance information.

Our response to the four main recommendations in the report are:

1. Strengthen focus on customers: We have plans in place to ensure we involve customers at an increasingly strategic level in both service design and delivery. We are also using our rapidly increasing customer profiling information to enable targeting of harder to reach groups, utilising a variety of communication methods.
2. Strengthen the approach to diversity: The Trust has already been in discussions with our regulator to ensure we concentrate our focus and resources on tackling the three main local priorities of social and economic deprivation, customers with restricted mobility and domestic violence.
3. Improve asset management: Our investment programme is well on target to deliver Decent Homes in advance of the 2010 deadline. We are currently accelerating our investment programme which will be completed some 15 months ahead of schedule at no extra cost to the Business Plan. We are also improving the quality and accuracy of the information we hold on our homes to enable improved longer term business planning.
4. Embed value for money approaches: We will continue to provide services that are efficient and represent value for money and identify efficiency gains across all service areas. Our VFM and Procurement Strategies in conjunction with our service review framework are already securing substantial improvements building upon the Trust’s track record of exceeding the challenging efficiency targets previously set in conjunction with the Housing Corporation.

In addition we are incorporating all suggestions for improvement from the report into our service delivery plans.

The Trust has already made progress since the inspection by:

• Introducing a procedure to our complaints handling that includes assessing the learning outcomes and feeding this back to Board.
• Introducing use of option appraisal and sustainability assessments
• Overhauling our performance management framework and the systems underpinning this, including a review of our performance indicators
• Reviewing our back office services to ensure they are fit for purpose and fully support front line service delivery
• Feeding the outcomes from the inspection on site and report into the development of the Trust’s new Corporate Plan from 2009 onwards
• Introducing a new framework to underpin our approach to service review and improvement
• Conducting an intensive door to door exercise to further increase our Customer Profile information
• Acceleration of the investment programme resulting in the completion of improvements to our customers homes over one year in advance of the original timescales and at a significantly reduced cost
• Renegotiating our gas servicing contract to include an improved specification whilst also delivering a saving of over £200k per year.
• Working with the New Generation Group to review and jointly procure insurance, agency staffing, recruitment and utilities supplier arrangements.
• Completing the procurement of the Grounds Maintenance Service, resulting in an improved specification whilst securing savings to the overall cost
• Reviewing our legal services and out of hours sheltered housing services
• Introduced an additional payment date for direct debits

The Trust is confident of delivering the report recommendations within the timescales through our robust monitoring framework and will provide regular updates to Board and our customers on the progress achieved.

The Trust would like to express our appreciation to all our employees, customers, Board Members and stakeholders for their support throughout the inspection process.

We also extend our thanks to the Audit Commission’s Inspection Team, whose honest and constructively challenging approach at all stages ensured the Trust maximised the potential benefits throughout the entire inspection.