A recent inspection by the regulatory body the Care Inspectorate has given high praise to Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership’s (DGHP) housing support services.

The published report highlighted the “excellent practice and continued improvement” at DGHP when the organisation’s housing support services were scrutinised in September with only a day’s notice.

The inspection focused on the Sheltered Housing Services, the Young Persons’ Project at Troqueer and the Temporary Accommodation for Homeless projects in Dumfries, Annan and Castle Douglas.

During the course of the inspection, the service was scrutinised against six Quality Statements and grades on a scale of 1 to 6 (poor to excellent).

DGHP was graded ‘6 (excellent)’ on four of the quality statements awarded and ‘5 (very good)’ on the other two statements. This is an improvement on a previous inspection in 2013 (DGHP was then graded ‘6s’ in two statements and ‘5s’ in four.

David McMillan, DGHP’s chairman, said: “This is an excellent result for DGHP and is testament to the dedicated work of the housing support team and the wider staff group who support the services.

“I am very proud of this report and that staff at DGHP have delivered excellent results as viewed by the Care Inspectorate.”

Jayne Moore, director of housing services with DGHP, added: “In addition to the well-deserved credit given by the Care Inspectorate to the support team, the report also recognised the wider team’s input through community participation, the new appraisal system and the 4-day training programme recently introduced.”

The report gave one, fairly minor, recommendation in connection with reviewing the job application form. This amendment is being implemented.

Jeanette Barnes, DGHP’s supporting people manager, added: “We are delighted with this as a result. It’s thanks to the hard work of the staff and the participation of the tenants using the service that we can achieve these results.”

The published report said: “Since the last inspection we found that the service provides very good support to the different sections of tenants using the service.

In conclusion the report said: “We would wish DGHP to continue with the very good housing support service it has developed.”

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