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THE MORAY COUNCIL HOUSING INSPECTION REPORT

The Scottish Housing Regulator today published its inspection report on The Moray Council. It awarded the council an ‘excellent’ rating for its housing management, a “good” rating for its asset management and repairs and a “fair” rating for services to homeless people.

The purpose of inspection is to provide an independent external assessment of the effectiveness of housing service delivery, and make recommendations to help improvement.

The Moray Council is situated in north east Scotland, with a population of some 88,000 people. It owns around 5,900 properties.

Michael Cameron, Head of Inspection at The Scottish Housing Regulator, said:

“Our inspectors found that The Moray Council has a number of significant strengths across all of its services. It is excellent at maximising its income, carries out repairs quickly, its houses and estates are in very good condition and it has a well established framework that supports tenants and encourages their participation and feedback. This high level of service has been consistently achieved while maintaining its rents among the lowest charged by Scottish councils.

“The Council is aware that its problems in accessing sufficient accommodation locally is resulting in some aspects of its service to homeless applicants being less than satisfactory. However it is committed to improving the service it provides and we are confident that that it is capable of addressing the weaknesses we have identified.”

Councillor McGillivray, Chairman of The Moray Council’s Communities Committee, said:

“The process of inspection has been valuable to us. The positive findings for our housing management and asset management/repairs services reflect the commitment of the Council and its staff to provide high quality housing services to our tenants. We recognise that we face challenges to provide homelessness services in the context of the acute shortage of affordable housing in Moray. We are already tackling some of the issues identified in the inspection report and we are developing an improvement plan for homelessness services. We are confident that we can sustain continued improvements in the services we provide."


NOTES TO NEWS EDITORS

1. Inspectors gave the following grades:

2. Full details of The Moray Council inspection report can be found on the Scottish Housing Regulator website at www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk

3. The Scottish Housing Regulator came into operation on 1 April 2008. It is the successor to Communities Scotland’s Regulation & Inspection Division. As a government agency the Scottish Housing Regulator has complete operational independence, but remains accountable to Scottish Ministers, and through them to the Scottish Parliament for the standard of its work. The agency sits within the Justice and Communities Directorate of the Scottish Government and will work within the government’s overall purpose and contribute to its strategic objectives.