Peer Review Inspection Team

What is a Peer Review?

The Inspection Regime is changing and there is a much greater reliance on self-assessment in order to improve and demonstrate excellent performance and service delivery.

The expectation is that housing organisations should have in place systems that monitor continuous improvement and indicate what is happening within the business.

In addition to this the role of Customers in the regulation/inspection/monitoring is becoming an integral part of what we do and an expectation from the Audit Commission that this is evident and demonstrating improvement.

As a consequence Tristar Homes has established, following training provided by the Northern Housing Consortium, a group of officers who are going to undertake internal peer reviews.

These peer reviews will provide a mechanism for self assessment, objective testing of services and an opportunity to capture good practice. They are also a tool in themselves to help drive improvement and provide an opportunity for customers to play an important role in Inspection.

The officers involved in the internal peer review include:

Janice McNay - Performance and Service Improvement
Kay Glew - Housing Management
Heather Hall - Financial Services
Merilyn Wilson - Technical Services

The peer review team have completed one full service inspection which inspected the Leasehold Service.

Short Notice Inspections

The peer review team undertake inspections in a similar way to the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission are however reviewing their approach to inspections and have undertaken a pilot which undertakes short notice style inspections.

The main changes to the inspection approach are that the inspection focuses on weaker areas of service identified through risk assessment tools. The Inspection team provides the organisation with 5 working days notice and the team is on site for 3 working days.  A short written report will be compiled following the inspection by the team.

Mirroring the approach of the Audit Commission, the peer review team will complete two short notice style inspections prior to April 2009. The outcome of these inspections will be published on our website.

We are working alongside our customers who have volunteered to help undertake these short notice inspections in order that the inspections are customer focussed. Our customers will play a key role in making sure that we deliver upon our promises.