Covalent Housing customer East North East Homes scoops coveted two stars from Audit Commission

Covalent ALMO customer East North East Homes (Leeds) has been rated as ‘good’ with ‘promising prospects for improvement’ according to an independent report released on the 14/1/10 by the Audit Commission.

They join fellow Covalent customer Sutton Housing Partnership in achieving the coveted two star rating this month (see here for earlier story).

ENEHL uses Covalent to track its performance indicators, manage its action and improvement plans, conduct self assessments and prepare for inspections, plus manage corporate risks and complaints.

The Audit Commission rated ENEHL's service as good, since it has a range of strengths including:

• 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

ENEHL was found to have a service with promising prospects for improvement because:

• there is a track record of making customer-facing improvements;
• corporate performance management is robust;
• the culture is customer-focused, with an emphasis on learning;
• the board and senior management team provide strong leadership;
• the recent restructure has boosted capacity as well as having reduced costs;
• effective systems are in place to manage risk and budgets; and
• high levels of staff absence due to sickness are coming under control.

For more information on Covalent for ALMOs, click here.