They undertake a programme of scrutiny activities, with the aim of improving the delivery of housing services.

In the last edition of Housing news, we reported that the CSG, supported by the South Lanarkshire Tenant Development Support Project (SLTDSP), had just completed a scrutiny activity which focused on the council’s approach to gas servicing and tenant safety and were finalising a report detailing their findings.

In August 2023, the CSG met with Housing and Technical Resources’ Resource Management Team to present their report and discuss their findings and recommendations from the review of this important service area.

In general, the findings from the scrutiny activity were positive with a number of areas of good practice highlighted by the CSG, including:

• the council is efficient in undertaking its duties to carry out gas servicing within properties.
• staff involved in the process are informed, helpful and committed
• communication between teams is positive and strong
• staff are proactive and use various ways to help ensure access for gas servicing
• written information on gas servicing is accessible through the council website and is written clearly

As well as identifying areas of positive practice, a key aspect of the activity was to identify whether there were aspects of the service that could be improved. The CSG highlighted a number of recommendations, including;

• the council should continue to strive to achieve 100% compliance within the gas servicing programme
• a review of correspondence issued to tenants during the process should be undertaken
• the range of information available to tenants should be reviewed, to ensure that there is full understanding of the responsibility to allow access
• improve operational processes to maximise opportunities for effective service delivery
• review administration and resource costs in relation to forced entry

Within their report the CSG noted that members had enjoyed taking part in the activity and found the experience to be both positive and valuable.

Jean Ramage, CSG member, said: “This has been the most interesting scrutiny exercise I’ve taken part in. It’s clear to see the staff work well together and value each other’s input, but there’s always room for improvement.”

Following presentation of the findings from the activity, further discussion took place with the CSG to agree the recommendations which are to be progressed. These have been included in an action plan to further improve the council’s approach to gas servicing and tenant safety.

The actions within the plan will be taken forward in coming months and progress will be monitored by and reported to the CSG.

Stephen Gibson, Executive Director of Housing and Technical Resources said: “The commitment from the CSG and attention to detail demonstrated throughout this exercise is very much appreciated.

“Customer scrutiny is a valued practice and has an important role in ensuring the continual improvement of services.” 

If you are interested in becoming involved in scrutiny or want to know more about the gas servicing activity, please email Hannah Beaton, SLTDSP.