Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

Wiltshire Council's tenants receive a poor service.

Wiltshire Council is providing a 'poor' housing management service which has 'uncertain' prospects for improvement. So says a report released today by the Audit Commission.

On a rating scale between zero and three stars the Audit Commission gave the Council's housing management service a zero rating. Areas covered by the inspection included: the repair and improvement of homes; rent collection; and dealing with antisocial behaviour.

Kieran Colgan, Audit Commission Lead Housing Inspector, said:

'Overall Wiltshire's housing service falls well below the standards we expect to see and their tenants deserve. There is much to do, but the Council has responded very positively to our report and has shown a strong desire to improve the service. This gives us greater confidence that tenants will see a better service in the future.'

Weaknesses include:

The service does not have a complete understanding of its tenants and their needs. It is therefore unable to tailor its services to meet those needs.

There is not enough focus on providing services fairly and equally.

It takes too long to let empty homes to new tenants.

It also takes too long to complete repairs to tenants' homes. When appointments are made, they are not always kept.

The process for dealing with anti-social behaviour is weak and tenant satisfaction is low.

Strengths include:

It is generally easy for customers to access services and customer feedback is used to improve services.

Homes are maintained well, and tenants are usually very satisfied with improvement work.

To help Wiltshire Council improve its services inspectors made a number of recommendations.

The council owns and manages around 5,400 homes in the former Salisbury District Council area. In the other parts of Wiltshire council housing was transferred to local housing associations some years ago.

This is not the first time that the housing service has received an adverse report from an external body. How long before some drastic action is taken at the council? Will we see resignations fron either the cabinet member, the portfolio holder or the head officer? I doubt it.

At full council earlier this week I asked questions about this service and received hardly satisfactory answers. If this service is under performing now, what will it be like if it has to service the extra £115million debt that may be placed on it by the government?

With appalling findings such as this the time has surely come for WC to approach its tenants asking them if they would rather transfer to a Registered Social Landlord that specialises in affordable housing.

The timing of the report was idea for the Leader and her Cabinet. Coming just three days after a full council meeting, they now have time to prepare a plethora of excuses before they can be held to public account for this shambles.