| MONITORING THE TRUST'S PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATING THE INITIATIVE
|
| |
| C&AG's Report, paras 2.15-2.16
| 33. The main target for the Trust over its lifetime is to rehouse all its secure tenants. The Trust has been set no other targets for its impact over its lifetime: at the outset the Department considered that Housing Action Trusts should devise their own measures and targets, specific to their tasks. In June 1993 the Department asked all Trusts to calculate 26 core performance measures each year. The measures were intended to be used to make comparisons between all the Trusts, in terms of their impact on employment levels, tenants' satisfaction and the final mix of tenure achieved.
|
| |
| Q 21
| 34. Our predecessors asked why, in 1995-96, the Trust only reported its performance for just over half of the core measures required by the Department. The Department explained that the Trust's Corporate Plan contained nearly 100 pages of performance information and that there was a great deal of reporting and monitoring of the Trust's performance. Nonetheless, the Department agreed with the National Audit Office that this was an area for improvement, and the Department have sought to address this.
|
| |
| Qs 13, 22, 24, 58-59
| 35. The Committee asked why only one of the six Housing Action Trusts had provided all the core performance measures which the Department had asked for, and why it was not possible to establish these measures from the outset. The Department reported that they had difficulty in establishing a set of measures which everyone was happy with and believed to be valid and useful. They started the process in 1993, with advice from Price Waterhouse. There had been a progressive refinement of those indicators, some of which in practice did not work, or did not report on things which people felt were important. The Department now thought that they had improved the indicators. They recently issued a Performance Monitoring Handbook to all Housing Action Trusts, and have standardised on a set of core indicators. In addition the Department explained that they had looked at the information that should be put in the Trusts' annual reports and would be looking to improve in this area in 1996-97. In line with guidance from Treasury, the core indicators would now be reported in the annual reports on a consistent basis. The annual reports would also draw on the better information currently in Trusts' corporate plans.
|
| |
| Qs 6-12
| 36. On the specific issue of job creation, the Committee asked the Trust why it had not tracked tenants' employment history after the Careers Advice and Placement Project had helped them into employment. The National Audit Office survey found that 29 per cent of those interviewed who had been recorded as having been helped into employment had not in fact been helped in this way. The Trust acknowledged that the recording techniques at that time were not as precise as they were now. It had now computerised the recording of this information. In addition the Trust had now carried out its own survey of 125 tenants, along the lines recommended by the National Audit Office, and the intention was to measure the progress of these 125 tenants every year. The Trust's survey showed that 39 per cent of those interviewed were now in work, and of those who were not in work 16 per cent had been in work at some time. 61 per cent of those surveyed had a positive outcome; they were either in work or on a training course.
|
| |
| Conclusions |
| |
| 37. We are surprised that the Trust reported its performance for only just over half of the core measures required by the Department, and that the Department were prepared to accept reporting by only one of the six Trusts on all the core measures they required. We note the Department's assurance that these weaknesses will be addressed and that the Trusts' annual reports will in future provide a fuller and more consistent basis for measuring performance than to date.
|
| |
| 38. We are concerned that the Trust maintained inadequate records of those it had helped into employment, and note that the Trust has now improved its recording methods for tracking tenants' employment history.
|
| |
| 39. We are concerned that the Department did not set performance measures for the initiative and the Trusts at the outset, and note that the Department have released, somewhat belatedly, a Performance Monitoring Handbook to improve the Trusts' performance reporting. We look to the Department to ensure that performance measures are established as early as possible for subsequent regeneration projects.
|
