Peer Reviews                                            

Many organisations find that external scrutiny has a positive impact in helping them improve their performance!

The Northern Housing Consortium (NHC) can provide that independent examination, with our facilitated peer review service. We work in partnership with BaildonDeanTambe (BDT), consultants with significant Audit Commission experience. Our peer review service will provide an effective method of assessing how well a service area is delivering, enabling your organisation to gain valuable experience of preparing for inspection, and staff involved increase their knowledge of areas where improvements are needed.

Those NHC Members who have already completed a peer review have found that, as well as gaining valuable learning and positive practice to take back to their own organisations, the process was a major asset in their own self-development.

"It was really challenging and carried out in a good, positive, professional but friendly atmosphere and provided a great learning exercise for some of our new staff who haven't experienced an inspection until now. The improvement areas will form the basis of our delivery plan for next year with good learning for us to take on from here and improve the service for customers".
Paul Mains, Director of Housing Maintenance, Blyth Valley Housing

 
The stages of a peer review
The process mirrors that of a housing inspection. We will ask you to provide a short self-assessment of the service area. From this, we draw some initial findings around strengths and weaknesses, which we then present to you at the start of the on-site work. We will follow this up with reality checks to test our initial findings and identify further strengths and areas for improvement. This will involve interviews with staff, tenants and board members. Our findings are presented to you in a final feedback discussion session. Within two weeks, we will provide a draft report and include positive practice from other organisations. We invite further feedback to the draft report and draw all together into a final report to you.

Key features:

• Cost effective external independent look at a service(s) of your business   
• Evaluation from experienced assessors and practitioners, centred on main Key Lines Of Enquiry (KLOE's) and the vital cross cutting themes.   
• Immediate feedback at the end of the review. A report will highlight positive practice from elsewhere with recommendations to form an action plan for improvements.
• The review can also include: comprehensive two day training prior to undertaking reviews, your staff's involvement within your organisation's evaluation, or their exposure to other organisations.

  Benefits

• Raising self awareness within your organisation.
• Immediate feedback allows for action planning to be quickly initiated.
• Gives your organisation a clear baseline position on performance against KLOE's.
• An effective trial run for potential future inspection.
• Demonstrates to customers, board members andregulators your commitment to continuous improvement.
• Improves individual's skills and techniques for self assessment, builds transferable skills and highlights positive practice.

Peer reviews are a key tool in inspection preparation, as the following quote from an Audit Commission report highlights, "The ALMO, recognising that value for money was a weak area, also commissioned a very thorough peer review of this area and is using the findings to guide its improvement priorities".

Specific areas covered

We can adapt a peer review specifically for your organisation, examining services that you may wish to concentrate on. Alternatively we can cover a range of housing management areas and the main cross cutting themes of the KLOE's i.e. Value for Money or Access and Customer Care.

 

To find out more please contact a member of the Performance Improvement Team on: 0191 5661000 or email performance@northern-consortium.org.uk

Peer Reviews

Improving Performance -