Housing Services performance

What is Performance Management?

Wanting to improve services for customers is at the heart of what we do. Performance management is about making the best use of people and information to help us improve.

Part of our approach is to ensure we have the right systems and processes in place to produce reliable performance information on which our plans, policies and decisions are based.

Information on how well we are performing can be found on this website, on the performance information board in our reception at Fort Rd, and in the Housing Link magazine sent to all tenants three times a year.

The Housing Services Department has four key performance management documents:

Housing Services Business Plan 2004 – 2034 -

The Department has a 30 year Business Plan which outlines our priorities and how we will manage and resource the service over the period.

The following PDF document goes to the Housing Services Business Plan 2004-2034
PDF Housing Services Business Plan 2004 – 2034 (1289.21kb, coun_houserv.pdf)

Housing Services Standards -

The Department also sets measurable standards for the main elements of our service that reflect the needs, expectations and rights of our customers.

Our standards are developed in consultation with our tenants, staff and partners. They reflect the key aims of the Council, our corporate strategies and our Departmental priorities outlined in our Business Plan. They include National and Local Best Value Performance Indicators and standards set corporately or within the Department. Our standards take account of current best practise and legislative requirements.

The following PDF document goes to the first part of the Housing Services Standards
PDF Housing Services Standards (131.38kb, coun_hsgservs_leaflet.pdf)

The following PDF document goes to the second part of the Housing Services Standards
PDF Housing Services Standards continued (131.89kb, coun_hsgservs2.pdf)

Housing Services Tenant’s Compact -

The compact is the name of the partnership agreement we have with our tenants which outlines tenant priority service improvements and standards.

The following PDF document goes to the Housing Services Tenant's Compact
PDF Housing Services Tenant’s Compact (651.27kb, hsg_tenants_compact.pdf)

Housing Services Departmental Action Plan (DAP) -

This plan helps us to manage our service improvement programme. In it we list the actions we will undertake to meet the Departmental priorities outlined in our Business Plan.

The following PDF document goes to the Housing Services Departmental Action Plan
PDF Housing Services Departmental Action Plan (DAP) (136.91kb, hsg_DAP.pdf)

The following PDF document goes to the Housing Services Completed Action List
PDF Housing Services Completed Action List (242.68kb, hsg_DAP_action_list.pdf)

In addition to the Departments four key documents, there is a Council-wide document called the Council Plan:

The Council Plan -

This is the Council’s key document for the reporting of performance information to the public. It sets out the actions the Council will be taking in the current year to improve our service and performance, and reports back on the achievements of the previous year. A summary of the Housing Services Department’s plans, performance and improvement priorities including performance and targets against national indicators can be found in this document.

The Council Plan

How do we measure and improve our performance?

The Department uses the following to help us measure our performance and set our targets:

Housing Services Monitoring Group -

The Department’s Business Plan, Service Standards, Tenant Compact and Departmental Action Plan are monitored regularly by the group, which is made up of staff and tenants.

Performance Indicators -

These are a set of national and local performance indicators agreed by the Government that are reported on annually and tracked quarterly. They enable comparisons to be made between different authorities and within an authority over time, across a range of services. They reflect the resources devoted to the service, the efficiency with which those resources are used, the quality of the service and the service users’ experience of service delivery. The Department is a member of a “benchmarking” club called House Mark.

The following Excel document goes to the Performance Indicators
Excel Performance Indicators (252.00kb, qmpi_2005_06_hous.xls)

Complaints and Compliments -

The Department welcomes and learns from complaints and compliments about the service. As well as our well publicised complaints procedure and our customer feedback forms for specific services, we also have a suggestion box in our reception at Fort Road. Please use the link to see “What You Said, What We Did”

The following PDF goes to the Housing compliments and complaints, showing what you said and what we did
PDF Complaints and Compliments (10.84kb, hsg_complaints_compliments.pdf)

Independent Review -

The Department is committed to the independent review of the service wherever possible and has held the Charter Mark a Government Kite Mark for excellence in customer service since 2004. The Department has an annual Charter Mark “healthcheck”.

Consultation with our Tenants -

We have a whole system in place to enable us to find out what our tenants think about the service. This includes regular surveys, meetings and conferences. For example, we have recently received the results of the 2006/7 tenants survey.

The following PDF document goes to the first part of the Results of the Consultation with our Tenants
PDF Consultation with our Tenants (23.24kb, hsg_Tenant_SurveyResults.pdf)

The following PDF document goes to the second part of the Results of the Consultation with our Tenants
PDF Consultation with our Tenants continued (221.95kb, hsg_Tenant_SurveyResults2.pdf)

To find out more about how you can influence the service please see our information on Tenant Participation

http://www.lewes.gov.uk/housing/11235.htm