In December, Insight finished their third scrutiny review of the year, which looked at support Great Places offers to help customers struggling with increasing costs of living.
The group’s members found customers who had engaged directly with support from the Financial Resilience Team fed back positive comments saying the support helped to get finances in order, to contact debtors and be more confident to manage finances. Following review, Insight proposed three recommendations based on their findings, which would build on the existing support offer as follows:
- To raise awareness and visibility of the support offer
- To provide greater choice for diverse accessibility
- To work with customers to measure the impact of support that’s been offered.
Before finishing for Christmas members looked back on the year’s achievements, which include the completion of two other reviews in addition to the Cost-of-Living support offer, these were:
- Customers’ experience of new-build properties
- Communications to customers about damp, mould and condensation
In total during 2023 Insight proposed fifteen recommendations, which were accepted, and relevant actions agreed to improve services. Insight is kept informed of the progress of actions to check if there has been a positive change to services for customers. For their next review Insight will scrutinise how Great Places manage and maintain neighbourhoods and estates, so they are places where people want to live – look out for updates in the monthly e-News.
Other services Insight has timetabled in to review this year include empty property standards and anti-social behaviour. If you are interested in these services or have relevant experiences that may be useful to inform an upcoming scrutiny review, please email customerscrutiny@greatplaces.org.uk or contact Tracy Gregory, scrutiny co-ordinator.