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Annual report training

The Governor

The third issue of HQN's magazine for boards, executives and leaders

The Governor

The second issue of HQN's magazine for boards, executives and leaders

Top architects and housing experts to think up age friendly homes of the future

Top architects and specialists including Sir Richard MacCormac and Professor Anne Power are amongst those recruited to take on the challenge of making sure homes of the future meet the needs of our ageing population

TSA funding to recognise and promote best practice and innovation

A new project to identify and promote best practice by social housing providers in England has been launched by the TSA. HAs, LAs and ALMOs are invited to make bids of up to £9,000 to support the development of agreements between landlords and their tenants to develop 'local deals'

HQN briefing on the Equality Bill and the Equality Framework for Local Government

Network briefing by Joanna Jeffery and Richard Seager sets out the main points of the bill with relevance to social landlords, such as the new public duty to promote equality for all the six diversity strands as well as a new duty to take account of the need to tackle socio-economic disadvantage in strategic planning

The Governor

The first issue of HQN's magazine for boards, executives and leaders

Efficiency in housing income management

Network briefing paper by Tony Newman which forms part of a series of HQN briefings on efficiency in social housing

To see ourselves as others see us - but first

How good is your board? Test yourself in our quick online quiz for board members. Follow the link to our HQN governance self-assessment toolkit with a foreword from Peter Marsh of the TSA

Decent Homes - the next steps?

Network briefing by Sheila Camp looks at the aims of the report; 'Towards a successor standard to Decent Homes', the key areas for a new standard, areas to be excluded/tackled locally and the next steps

Getting it right, and righting the wrongs - practitioners' toolkit

This toolkit is intended to be a practical aid to help councils work with customers and other partners to identify key issues for improvement in both their service provision and systems of redress

What does excellence look like? Resident involvement

Network briefing by John Wheeldon looking at the attributes of excellent three-star organisations inspected by the Audit Commission in 2007 and 2008. This briefing covers resident involvement

Draft Housing (Scotland) Bill: a commentary

Network briefing by Dave Alexander on the draft Scottish Housing Bill which is the subject of current consultation. The briefing looks at the proposals in detail, and offers a commentary on the consultation questions posed by the Government

State of the nation: homelessness

Network briefing by Sheila Spencer which provides organisations with a round-up of the key issues for local authorities and housing providers when planning how best to prevent and respond to homelessness

Empowering communities to influence local decision making - A systematic review of the evidence

This study used a robust, replicable method to systematically review the domestic and international evidence base around community empowerment. The aim of the review was to make sense of variable and often competing or contrasting evidence in order to identify which mechanisms empower; in what ways, and in what contexts

Communities Progress Report

In July 2008 the government published the White Paper Communities in Control: Real People, Real Power which aims to pass power into the hands of local communities. This progress report sets out progress made since the publication of the White Paper and provides a timeline for future implementation

Empowering communities to influence local decision making - Evidence-based lessons for policy makers and practitioners

This CLG report draws on a systematic review of community empowerment to provide evidence-based lessons for policy makers and practitioners

Complaints/compliments toolkit

The Network's popular self-assessment toolkit by Gill Stead

LGBT Housing reports launched

Stonewall Scotland and the Scottish Housing Regulator have jointly launched two guides for social housing providers and homelessness services

Proposed changes to the delivery of local authorities' and FRAs' freedoms and flexibilities after the introduction of CAA

This CLG consultation paper, aimed at English local authorities and fire and rescue authorities, their partners and stakeholders, includes proposals to reduce or simplify the requirement to create plans for central government on issues such as local transport, youth justice and air quality; extend the power to trade for profit to all English councils and fire and rescue authorities, enabling them to offer a broad range of services such as in building, highways and vehicle maintenance; and allow councils to spend any income from environmental fixed penalty notices as they see fit

Hazel Blears: Local people key to unlocking greater savings

Councils must listen to the views of local people to work smarter and make greater efficiency savings, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has announced

Sustainable Communities Act 2007: Local Spending Report England 2006-07

The Sustainable Communities Act 2007 places a requirement on the Secretary of State to make arrangements for the production of local spending reports. On 20 February 2009 CLG launched a consultation on the first arrangements. This is the first report which has been developed with regard to responses to the consultation

Call on councils to help more young people into work

A £1 billion fund to stimulate councils' efforts to help people into work was hailed today as Ministers called on organisations to submit innovative bids for jobs that will make Britain a better place and improve their local community

Guidance for short notice inspections

Network briefing by HQN associate, Ellis Blackmore, which includes ideas for the development of outcome-focussed self-assessment, and invites feedback on good practice which can be shared with other organisations

Summary of responses to the consultation on the deferred National Indicators

This summary of responses provides local authorities and their partners feedback to the views conveyed by respondents and the subsequent actions the government has taken. The deferred national indicators consultation provided local authorities and their partners the opportunity to comment on the technical definitions for 13 deferred and revised indicators due for introduction in April 2009

Analysis of English local authority housing management performance 2007/08

The latest briefing in our annual series of performance indicator analyses by Hal Pawson

National Indicators for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships: Updated National Indicator Definitions

This CLG document provides a series of National Indicators that have been updated since the Handbook of Definitions was published in April 2008

Latest key housing association performance indicators published

Results on average across the sector and across the range of PIs are consistent with last year’s results. However there remain significant differences between those at the upper and those at the lower ends of the performance spectrum

Need to squeeze out excellent value for money during these challenging times?

There’s no time like now to reinvigorate your strategies for achieving greater efficiency and value. Whether you’re at the start of your journey and need to get to grips with the whole agenda, whether you have undertaken reviews and need to understand your priorities, or whether you’re ready to make the move from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’, HQN has a team of housing finance and performance management specialists who can bring their expertise to your benefit in taking VfM forward

Promoting inter-generational understanding through Community Philosophy

Communities can bring younger and older people together in ways that may be uncomfortable for both groups. Young people’s behaviour may be labelled 'nuisance', while older people's views may be labelled 'intolerant'. This Joseph Rowntree study summarises an independent evaluation of the 'Thinking Village project', which was designed to develop intergenerational understanding in a neighbourhood, using the principles of 'Community Philosophy'

The Cole Report: delivering cross-domain regulation for social housing

Professor Ian Cole was appointed to chair a panel of independent stakeholders tasked with producing recommendations to government on how to extend the scope of the Tenant Services Authority to include local authority social housing. This report presents the set of final recommendations

Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and Tenant Services Authority (TSA)

Network briefing by Charlie Hughes summarises the background to splitting up the Housing Corporation's functions of funding and regulation and reminds readers of the reasons and objectives behind this change