Midlands association 'letting tenants down'

A short-notice inspection by the Audit Commission of Sanctuary Midlands found its repairs and customer services were below standard. It found more weaknesses than strengths in five of the six areas that it inspected.

There was a marked difference in the high quality of repairs provided by the housing association’s own staff and a more variable service provided by contractors used by Sanctuary. The inspectors also said Sanctuary was failing to measure customer satisfaction around empty homes and gas servicing.

More than 200 gas safety checks had been late, with some missing the deadline by several months.

The inspectors praised Sanctuary for its in-house maintenance service, and for involving its customers in improving some services such as the standard of repairs to empty homes.

Ann Bennett, lead housing inspector, said: ‘Sanctuary Midlands is letting its customers down by not providing strong and consistent services that meet their needs. It hasn’t focused on what results it is getting and whether these are effective.

‘The association needs to do much more to ensure that services perform well and that the quality it is delivering meets customer expectations.’

Sanctuary chair Nick Baldwin said the group was ‘extremely shocked and disappointed’ with the judgements.

‘The inspection only covered a small proportion of Sanctuary’s properties. Nevertheless this is a matter of the utmost concern to all of us as in this instance the conclusions reached by the Audit Commission differ markedly from those of Sanctuary’s internal quality assurance systems and we are investigating the reasons for this,’ he said.

‘We have also instigated work on a robust action plan to address all the concerns arising from the inspection, which will be delivered to the Audit Commission by May 26.’

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