From fair to good – housing in east and north east Leeds improves

Good with promising prospects – that’s the judgement on one of the organisations managing Leeds’ council housing

East North East Homes Leeds (ENEHL), one of the city’s three Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMOs), is ‘good’ and has ‘promising prospects for improvement’ according to an independent report released today by the Audit Commission.

On a scale from zero to three stars, the Audit Commission inspection team raised ENEHL’s rating from a ‘fair’ one to a ‘good’ two star rating. This was because its estates are well managed and significant improvements are being made to thousands of homes to bring them up to modern standards.

Strengths include:
• Customers are involved in decision-making
• The ALMO has demolished unpopular homes and will bring the rest up to the government's Decent Homes Standard by December 2010
• Most services are effective and the ALMO is working hard to deal with anti-social behaviour and address financial exclusion
• The ALMO has done well in delivering value for money savings

Weaknesses include:
• Customer satisfaction remains relatively low
• Re-letting of vacant homes is slow
• Rent arrears are high

To help the service improve, inspectors made a number of recommendations. These include:
• Improvements in access to services
• Improvements in planning and performance management

Domini Gunn-Peim, the Audit Commission’s Lead Housing Inspector for Yorkshire and Humberside, said:
“East North East Leeds has done a lot in the last year to improve the service from one to two stars. Its governing body, managers and staff demonstrate a strong commitment to service improvement and customers can have confidence that services will continue to get better.”

Angelena Fixter, chair of the East North East Homes Leeds board, said:
“We’re pleased that the Audit Commission has recognised the improvements that the hard work of our staff have produced, all on the back of recommendations from the inspection in 2008.
“In the short space of time since then, all of the team has worked hard to improve and that work has clearly paid off.
“We know that we still have work to do though and together with the council we will address the latest recommendations and continue to improve our services for the benefit of residents.”

Councillor Les Carter, Leeds City Council’s executive board member for housing, said:
“This is very good news and is down to the hard work of people on the ground.
“The council has pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into bringing the city’s council housing up to the Decency Standard, which has been a significant challenge for us to achieve. So it’s good to see that despite having to deliver that, East North East Homes Leeds has still managed to improve across the board.
“It’s now important that they take the criticisms on board and ensure that services improve still further for council tenants.”

Notes for editors:
East North East Homes Leeds is one of three Arms Length Management Organisations (ALMO) which manage and maintain council housing on behalf of Leeds City Council. It is wholly owned by the council, which retains ownership of housing stock and sets rents.
East North East Homes Leeds manages 19,000 council-owned residential properties in Boston Spa, Burmantofts, Chapel Allerton, Chapeltown, Collingham, Gipton, Halton Moor, Harehills, Linton, Meanwood, Moor Allerton, Moortown, Richmond Hill, Seacroft, and Wetherby.

The Audit Commission is an independent watchdog that audits £200 billion spent by 11,000 local public bodies.

ENDS
For media enquiries please contact:
Michael Molcher, Leeds City Council (0113) 224 3937
e-mail: michael.molcher@leeds.gov.uk