HouseMark ASB Benchmarking Conference 2010

Many of you may have attended the HouseMark Anti Social Behaviour Benchmarking Conference last week where Peter Jackson, SLCNG chaired the day; we heard from the new ASB Action Team, Year-end results from the HouseMark Team, amongst good practice examples and news on the HouseMark/SLCNG ASB accreditation scheme.

I spoke about the new ASB Action Team that has been set up by the CIH and funded by CLG a couple of weeks ago, after listening to their update, it looks like they are making rapid progress in meeting their objectives to share good practice and shout about innovative ideas to tackle ASB. They have visited a number of customers already and have had positive feedback, to arrange your session with the new team, visit the website http://www.cih.org/asbactionteam/.

HouseMark year-end figures highlight and reflect the huge amount of great work housing associations and social landlords are doing across the UK to case manage ASB complaints; we can see a rise in the number of people benchmarking year on year, bringing it to the fourth year  in operation. A few comments here for you; however, if you would like to view the report and see the detailed figures, take a look at www.housemark.co.uk

• 94% of benchmarking social landlords are engaged in partnership work with external agencies to reduce ASB
• Landlords are becoming more advanced at recording ASB, two thirds now use specialist ASB systems like ReACT
• Noise still remains the main cause of ASB – showing a year on year increase in most quarters
• ASB differs between regions – the North has the biggest proportion of garden nuisance whereas London has the largest share of loiterers

It was a great day at Coventry; as you know, it’s always good to hear of others highlights and working methods in this field. Liz Ellis, ASB & Caretaking Services Manager from Stockport Homes spoke about how Stockport Homes strived to achieve, yet again a three star ASB Service.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts and comments about the results, the conference, the new ASB Action Team or good practice that is being shared; you can contact us here via the blog or email me kateh@e-b-s.co.uk.