East Ayrshire Council has held its fifth Annual Tenants' Conference in the Park Hotel, Kilmarnock.

Councillor Kathy Morrice, spokesperson for Community Wellbeing, re-affirmed her continuing commitment to Housing and her support for resident involvement during what had been a busy and eventful year before handing over to Chris McAleavey, Head of Housing, who spoke about the Scottish Housing Regulator's Inspection Report.

The report is an independent assessment of the effectiveness of Housing Service delivery. It identified many strengths and demonstrated the commitment and good work being done by the Council. However, Chris highlighted that there were areas for improvement and that the Council would address these in the coming weeks and months to further develop and improve the service.

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The ever popular 'ask the audience style' voting was used to record views on the workshop themes that were identified by the East Ayrshire Tenants' and Residents' Federation, namely allocations, the Scottish Housing Quality Standard and Managing Our Estates which were discussed in more detail at the break-out sessions.

Fiona Lees, Chief Executive of the Council, spoke about how the Council had tackled the issues raised at last year's conference including repairs, anti-social behaviour and cleansing, before moving onto the workshop themes for this year's conference and the council's commitment to continuous improvement and resident involvement.

Councillor Morrice and Fiona Lees then presented Registered Tenants' Organisation certificates to several of the groups represented and also to East Ayrshire Tenants' and Residents' Federation whose Vice Chair, Frank Dawson went on to speak about the Federation and the work it was involved in to further develop tenant and resident involvement in improving services and strengthening communities in East Ayrshire.

Councillor Morrice said: "It is vitally important that we keep in touch with the views of our tenants. The conference provided tenants with the opportunity to discuss key issues which are relevant to them and to find out how to become more involved in the decision making process."

(GK/JM)