Housing Frontiers 2008

This report is published at an important time for local housing authorities as steps towards the new local government performance management regime (Comprehensive Area Assessments) are introduced. The recent release of the new National Indicator dataset identifies the full range of variables that will help inform and assess performance and it is clear that there will be increasing emphasis on understanding key performance results in the light of local factors.

The Audit Commission recognises that local demographic and socio-economic factors are a significant determinant of satisfaction:

Councils and their partners are increasingly obtaining robust data about satisfaction levels and the views of customers and residents. However, there remains a reluctance to draw definite or scored conclusions about overall performance based upon performance information in isolation……. There are major issues in relation to the impact on satisfaction levels of factors such as deprivation, geography and diversity which need careful consideration.

Audit  Commission, 'Assessment of local services beyond 2008'

These changes point to a greater need to understand the effect that place has on local authority performance and we believe our frontiers analysis provides a valuable input into this debate.