The safety of tenants of a North East landlord, Home Group, was put at risk when they failed to carry out gas safety checks.
An inspection carried out on the Newcastle based housing provider also revealed that tenants feel that complaints are not dealt with as they should be, phone calls were not answered due to staff shortages and the information the housing group had, which was supposed to help tenants, was not up-to-date. Home Group has thousands of tenants across properties in North Tyneside, Durham, Newcastle and Gateshead, enough to generate a turnover of £300 million last year. The group was found to be offering tenants substandard services. The failings of the landlord included customer care, value for money, repairs and what are the most dangerous, gas service checks. Home group are a large housing provider, who despite having landlord insurance are not as helpful to tenants as they should be, according to the auditor’s report.
Riza Yassin, an Audit Commission inspector said: “Tenants are not getting the quality of service that we or the Home Group themselves want to see provided. We found the service is not focused on its customers and is not reaching its performance targets. Costs of the services are relatively high. However, the group is involving tenants and making some important efficiency savings.”
The group were given five days notice that the inspectors were be coming to review all of the services they provide. The findings on Home Group have been published today, and the findings came with some recommendations on where improvements need to be made. The most shocking, being that the tenants were living in a property without the safety checks to their gas appliances being carried out.
Chairman of the Home Group Rod Bennion said: “We have been very open with our customers about our shortcomings and what we intend to do to address them. Satisfied customers are absolutely vital to us. We make no excuses.”
The Home group have now started work to get its services improved and have also taken on board and put in place the Audit Commissions recommendations.