Slough Borough Council’s Home Improvement Agency (SHIA) is officially the best in the country, after picking up an award at the Foundations HIA Awards 2008 ceremony.
The Slough SHIA team were presented with the Home Improvement Agency of the Year award by local MP Fiona Mactaggart on February 26 at Portcullis House in Westminster. The aim of the award is to share good practice amongst the sector and to promote the sector to a wider audience.
Along with the Slough team’s success is the individual achievement of Keith Ford who at the time was the HIA team manager, and won the award for outstanding contribution by an individual.
The main highlights of the Slough council’s HIA department, and some of the reasons for winning agency of the year, are:
* The SHIA’s free burglar alarm and security lighting scheme has had a significant impact and recent crime stats have shown that incidences of domestic burglary have reduced by 6.5 percent
* Overall, 95 percent of clients felt safer at home following installation
* Excellence in the delivery of disabled facilities adaptations
* Safety and security initiatives
* Government inspectors recently said SHIA’s aids and adaptation service was the best they’d seen
The Slough not-for-profit organisation helps homeowners and private sector tenants who are elderly, disabled or on low incomes to repair, maintain and adapt their homes.
Slough’s HIA has stood out time and again because of its innovative ways of helping residents which could be replicated by other authorities throughout the country to improve their services.
The team has also had many successes with reducing costs and the significant increase year on year in the number of cases being processed.
Steve Wagner, senior home improvements officer for Slough Borough Council, said: “We were all very excited to have won this award as it makes all our efforts worthwhile.
“The whole team have worked extremely hard to achieve this and will continue to carry on the good work.”
Cllr Chrissy Small, commissioner for Slough health and wellbeing, added: “I’m glad the work of the aids and adaptations team has been recognised in this way.
“I nominated them as I know the team makes a real difference to people in Slough. We all really enjoyed our day in Westminster to receive the award.”
Slough Borough Council
