South Tyneside Homes shuffles team again!
South Tyneside Homes tha ALMO (Arms Length Management Organisation) floated off by South Tyneside Council produced a review last week which made some interesting reading, no doubt some of our councillors may have been slightly shocked at what it revealed.
Matthew Foreman, the acting Director of Housing made further annnouncements yesterday on team changes.
Following the e-mail sent last week regarding the review of the housing management service we have progressed with the set up of two specialist teams to deliver low level tenancy enforcement and follow up action for income recovery.
I would like to advise you that as a result of this we have selected the following employees as part of the new structure which will be implemented in January.
Liz McKivitt will be the Tenancy Enforcement Manager with responsibility to manage a small team of officers to address low- level breaches of tenancy.
Elsa Clarke will be the Rent Income Manager with responsibility for rent and income recovery actions with a team of officers.
Sean Halligan and Trevor Denham will continue as Housing Managers and we will be adding some extra capacity to fill the remaining Housing Manager posts in the near future. The locations of the Housing Managers will be confirmed once we have filled the remaining vacancies.
I‘m beginning to think that comparisons with Steve MacLaren might be in order, so many changes in line up, so many changes in formation, no settled team, and the inevitable failure to qualify!
Getting back to the housing review of last week, the board meeting held on 19th. November at South Shields Town Hall heard that South Tyneside Homes reported a loss of £16.5m. in it’s first financial year,
The accounts reflect the inclusion of the pension deficit and associated pension liability relating to the employees transferred to the Company from the Council on the 1 April 2006. This is in accordance with the financial reporting requirements relating to the treatment of pension deficits and liabilities.
One might have thought that the inclusion of the pension deficit, whilst not a cash loss or a sum that needs to be paid, is a factor that still needs to be “provided for”, and that any liabilities transferred should also have been accompanied by a transfer of any assets accrued by the pension fund. The board heard that the operating loss was £22,000 excluding the pensions deficit.
The performance management report for the second quarter of this year shows that of the main KPIs (key performance indicators) 20% are at the same level or worse than the year end figures for last year, and in the excellent services header three out of ten KPIs achieved target. In the modern homes header 40% of KPIs are failing to meet targets. In the running ourselves well category only one out of eight KPIs is achieving target, and with sickness absence running at 13.15 days per employee they are struggling to reach the performance of other comparable organisations. Finally in the contributing to the community section only three out of seven KPIs are meeting target.
The following top ten priorities were agreed by tenants at the 2nd. Annual Tenants Conference held at The Customs House in South Shields on Saturday 3rd. November:
1. A clean and well maintained environment outside your home
2. Access to all our services by telephone
3. Improvements to homes, such as kitchens and bathrooms
4. A good repairs service
5. Easy access to our service by internet/e mail
6. A choice of fittings when improvements are made to your home
7. Providing customer friendly services that put customers first
8. Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour
9. Dealing with rent arrears appropriately
10. Access to all our services by internet/e-mail
It is worth noting items 2, 5, 7, and 10, which clearly show the difficulties and obstacles faced by customers when attempting to achieve realistic communication with officers of South Tyneside Homes.
At least the review is frank in it’s comparative benchmarking against other ALMOs, it speaks of mixed levels of performance and low satisfaction levels, as well as very low expenditure on major cyclical projects and very high expenditure on responsive repairs. It is difficult to see how they intend to achieve the governments decent homes standard despite the commitment to spend £2.2m over the next year (some of which, as yet is unfunded!)
South Tyneside Homes has a fair way to go to achieve a two star rating at it’s next audit, and seems to be suffering from crisis management as the hoses come out to go firefighting. Team morale appears to be low (high sickness is always a good indicator of this) and stability and staff turnover are in inverse proportions. It is no wonder so many come to air their grievances here, they appear to be banging their heads against a plasterboard brick wall at Strathmore House!
South Tyneside Homes was set up to ensure tenants are first when it comes to their homes and the environment they live in.
Tenants have had no input into the staffing of the organisation. This tinkering with structures is not addressing the fundamental problem which is too much incompetence at a senior level with ineffective managers being protected and sent to other areas or sent to the comfort of the headquarters building under another title instead of being held accountable for their inadequacies.
The tenants and leaseholders are held in contempt if they have the audacity to question decisions or policies, the truth is South Tyneside Homes don’t care what tenants want, and Officers will decide what tenants get and when they get it. This is the way it worked before and they have no intention of changing now despite changing their name to South Tyneside Homes.
Comment by Residents Association Rep — December 2, 2007 @ 8:48 pm