Bedford Borough Council - ENLIGHT Housing Options

 

Dawn Parker, Bedford’s Housing Needs Manager, talks about how much Destin Solutions is helping her service.

The Challenge

'At Bedford Borough Council, our Housing Options team has expanded in line with the different options that we have developed, enabling us to provide real solutions for people’s housing problems’ says Dawn Parker, the Housing Needs Manager. Dawn wanted to ensure the advice they give to the public remains consistent, current and responsive to local and national trends, so that the maximum number of people are offered appropriate and meaningful opportunities to avoid becoming homeless.

Dawn explains how Destin ENLIGHT helped:

The Solution

‘I wanted to cut down on the amount of time our advisers had to spend finding information to assist clients. There seemed to be an ever-increasing amount for them to take in as we developed more and more housing and homelessness prevention options in the Borough. Opportunities for struggling homeowners were changing particularly quickly.

There’s new guidance all the time, affecting the assessment of clients under homelessness legislation, and the interpretation of the law in the Courts is critical to good homelessness decision-making. Destin Solutions created a comprehensive resource tailored to the way that we operate our service..

Our ENLIGHT procedure manual pulls together all we need to know about what we do and the way that we do it. There’s all the relevant legislation and a rich resource of case law - which, together with good practice guidance, is kept up to date by a housing expert at Destin Solutions. There’s also CLG-endorsed standard letters, forms and interviewing scripts.

Our staff can follow options through our own developed workflow which is skillfully linked together within the Manual. It not only saves staff time but gives staff confidence that they are giving the most up to date advice. Additionally, the Manual provides a fabulous training resource for new or temporary staff as it is personalized with our own local procedures and information.

Why Destin?

‘Destin Solutions’ Principal Housing Consultant, Ruth Trown, has provided services to a number of similar authorities that are known to me – and I’d heard great things. When I met Ruth what came across straight away was her wealth of experience as a practitioner. That really gave me confidence.

Ruth was able to help us structure the Manual in the best way for our service. I particularly like the way that it is a ‘living’ tool – evolving in response to changes in the environment. It means the Manual maintains its value and we get a great return on our investment.’