Every assessment reveals aspects of service where improvement is possible and desirable according to Colin Mair. For him, the key challenge is to make self-assessment an integrated part of all social landlords operations.

He used the West Lothian Council as an example of an organisation that has embraced self assessment. This has led to improved value for money as well as improving the service for customers. He also revealed that those organisations that routinely carry out self assessment have to spend less money when external assessors visit. This is because organisations that do not carry out self assessment have to create new monitoring mechanisms when an inspection is looming and often have to rely on external consultants to collate performance information.

Karen Watt said that although self assessment has moved up the political agenda it is not new. In fact she revealed that self assessment was a characteristic of every landlord that Communities Scotland had awarded an “A” grade to. She also said that those landlords that were most surprised by poor reviews from Communities Scotland routinely failed to carry out self assessment. She underlined the importance of customer focussed outcomes in any assessment process.

She then said the characteristics of those organisations that are awarded high grades include:
• Explicit customer service standards
• A transparent complaints process
• Processes to transform customer feedback into service improvements
• Tenant involvement
• Respect for customers
• Senior managers that know where the real business lies

Karen concluded by revealing that from the first of April the inspection of social landlords will be carried out by the newly named “Scottish Housing Regulator”. She also promoted the new website for Scotland’s housing regulator www.scottishhousingregulator.gov.uk . She said that the site will include questions that social landlords can ask themselves when going through the self assessment process.