Performance improvement

Performance improvement

This area of business is led by Executive Director Lydia Dlaboha. HQN has been the market leader on mock inspections since 1999 and has undertaken over 200 service improvement exercises:

• HQN has been the consultancy used for inspection support for recently awarded three-star organisations including Solihull, Islington, Newcastle, Evesham and Pershore
• We maintain a bank of good practice based on our service improvement work across a range of areas including equality and diversity, resident involvement, value for money, repairs, housing management and income recovery
• We work with customers and research their opinions via survey work, focus groups and resident conferences
• We have researched best practice in housing in the UK and abroad and have produced briefings and toolkits. This work involves an annual analysis covering housing performance across all housing sectors, identifying key trends and themes
• We have carried out national research on critical factors that drive improvement on behalf of the then ODPM, who then published this as the 'Climbing to the Stars' toolkit
• We conduct benchmarking exercises for a number of different services including leasehold, rent income and sheltered housing, and geographically-based benchmarking comparing KPIs
• Several of our Associates have led on high profile national research projects. For example, Tim Brown (director of the Centre for Comparative Housing Research) has authored several high profile CBL research studies; Professor of Housing Hal Pawson, of Heriot-Watt University ,has carried out national research on the use and effectiveness of ASBOs, and Joanna Jeffery and Richard Seager worked with the National Housing Federation on the guide to Equality Impact Assessments
• Our Operations Director (South) was placed with the then ODPM on a six-month secondment; the work contributed to the development of the consultation paper on the future for ALMOs
• We have worked for National Audit office, undertaking a review of the condition and quality of overseas accommodation for servicemen
• We have excellent partnership arrangements with three-star housing organisations who have, in their own right, carried out research in key areas such as West Kent Housing Association (research into the housing needs of Gypsies and Travellers)
• HQN analyses each and every inspection report and talks to lead inspectors about shifting emphasis. Our unique inspection report database enabled an SNI pilot to persuade the Audit Commission to move it up from zero to one, and an ALMO to surge from two stars to three stars on appeal this year.

For further information, please contact Anna Pattison on anna.pattison@hqnetwork.co.uk or Clare Clifford on clare.clifford@hqnetwork.co.uk or 0845 4747 004