What we've been working on: Scrutiny Panel

The Scrutiny Panel has carried out the following reviews.

To request a copy of any of these reports please e-mail involvement@southtyneside.gov.uk.

During 2022, the Scrutiny Panel carried out a review on our existing damp and mould procedures.

The Panel were aware that across the housing sector damp and mould is an issue subject to intense media attention and to scrutiny by the Housing Ombudsman, as the problem can cause significant distress to household occupants and can also contribute to health problems.

The Panel agreed to look at what South Tyneside Council Housing Services does when customers report damp or mould and bring forward recommendations for improvements.

The review

The review was carried out between February 2022 and November 2022 with the panel carrying out many activities such as:

• Desktop Review - this meant reviewing what South Tyneside Council Housing Services currently does when we get a report of damp and mould.
• Discussions with staff
• Customer Journey Mapping (in-depth conversations with customers who made complaints about damp or mould)
• Survey of customers reporting damp or mould

The Panels main observations and findings were that:

• Staff need to be better equipped in terms of the processes and systems that are in place for them to use, as well as their skills and knowledge, to be able to provide customers with the help that they need when reporting damp or mould.
• The management of damp and mould cases must be built upon a robust knowledge of the condition of the housing stock.  
• A more systematic response is needed to a report about damp and mould so that it can be informed by both knowledge of the property condition and history, as well as knowledge of current household vulnerabilities, and taken together this informs an inspection and any subsequent work that takes place.
• Procedures must be developed so that household vulnerabilities, such as relevant health conditions are considered when damp or mould is being reported so that appropriate advice and assistance can be provided when customers first report problems with damp or mould to the Customer Contact Centre, and when inspections take place.
• The diagnosis of problems must be more effective, advice given to tenants must be more appropriate, and customer care must be made a priority. Improved information available to inspectors about household condition and history will help them to diagnose issues. This must also be informed by enhanced information collection and recording and taking account of household vulnerabilities will enable better advice to be given to tenants, better decision-making being made about what work may be required and when, and in relation to assessing whether a decant should be recommended.
• Improvements must be made to the way that customers are kept informed about the progress of any work scheduled to take place. This is an area requiring significant improvement and was a strong theme across all customer research undertaken for this review.
• There is also a need to significantly improve the way that communications take place between teams within Housing Services and was a strong theme across all customer research undertaken for this review.

The Panel were able to make 34 recommendations to improve services and benefit customers.

The Green Homes Grant was a Government funded scheme aimed at delivering energy saving measures in some of the lowest energy rated properties in the Borough.

The scheme ran from May 2021 to autumn 2022 and delivered improvements to 246 homes.

A number of challenges were encountered in delivering the programme. In particular, meeting complex scheme criteria and requirements which were also altered during the course of the scheme by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial strategy [BEIS].

South Tyneside Homes has learned lessons from delivering the scheme, and the Scrutiny Panel were keen to undertake a review to make sure that the customer experience contributed to this learning.

The review

The Panel began work on the review in January 2023.

The Scrutiny Panel recognise that delivering energy saving measures to 246 customers homes has been a positive outcome, particularly given the significant challenges faced in delivering the scheme.

These challenges were in relation to complex scheme management requirements and changes to processes and eligibility that delayed progress and led to frustration amongst customers as well as scheme managers.

During the course of carrying out this review the Scrutiny Panel captured extensive customer feedback, and many customers said they had been kept informed about the work that was to be carried out (78% of survey respondents).

Two-thirds of survey respondents said the way that work was carried out was very good, however there was a significant amount of customer feedback that indicated that there were problems.

This included problems with the way customers were kept informed and with the way that work was carried out, resulting in delays and mess, as well as frustrations with the requirement for multiple surveys and mixed messages over the measures they would receive.

This report made 15 recommendations for improvement that have been agreed for implementation.

This review was carried out between October 2020 and January 2021.

The Scrutiny Panel took an in-depth look into the communications between South Tyneside Council Housing Services and customers about fire safety in their homes and the effectiveness of these communications.

Following this review, a total of 25 recommendations were proposed to Housing Services which were then agreed as actions.

By 31 March 2022 all actions were fully delivered.

For more information on fire safety and how to keep safe, see Fire safety: What you should do to stay safe.

In October 2024 the customer Scrutiny Panel completed an in-depth review of communications within the responsive repairs service and made 31 recommendations for improvements that could be made to benefit customers.

These recommendations have all been accepted by the organisation who will now be implementing actions to deliver the improvements identified.

The Scrutiny Panel initially decided to undertake the review because complaints data, Tenant Satisfaction Survey (TSM) responses and evidence from other work it had undertaken pointed to the existence of problems in this area.

The review

The Panel began work on the review in January 2024 and collectively spent approximately 400 hours of volunteer time carrying out research and compiling the report.

During the course of the review the Panel reviewed systems and processes and spoke to customers and staff about their experiences.

The Panel concluded that there is significant scope to improve processes of internal communication within teams and external communication with customers.

They considered that improvements to these processes will:

• increase the efficiency of the service
• reduce pressures on all teams
• allow existing resources to be more productive

Review recommendations relate to:

• the keeping of accurate records about repair job requirements
• understanding of customer communication needs and preferences
• carrying out pro-active communication with customers about their repairs jobs
• appointment time slots and overall timescales
• the diagnosis of jobs
• carrying out and keeping records of quality control inspections

The Scrutiny Panel will carry out an ongoing review of progress with implementation of the recommendations.