PERFORMANCE levels in East Ayrshire Council's housing service have dropped in several key areas, a report has revealed.

According to the local authority's Annual Performance Report to Tenants, performance levels in eight of 17 key categories were worse in 2022-23 than in the previous year.

There has been improvement in three areas, while six have remained the same.

Emergency repairs took an average of 1.7 hours to complete, according to the report, compared to 1.4 hours in 2021-22.

The average time to complete non-emergency repairs increased from 8.5 days to nine.

The report states that 84.9 per cent of 'reactive repairs' were completed right first time, compared to a figure of 94.3 per cent for 2021-22.

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More positively, there were no properties where housing staff failed to meet their statutory duty to complete a gas safety check, while the average time taken to re-let properties fell from 72.2 days to 58.6.

The report is published each year to keep tenants, service users and other customers of the housing service informed of the authority's progress towards meeting the outcomes in the Scottish Housing Charter.

According to the report, 91.9 per cent of tenants are satisfied with the overall service provided by the council as their landlord - the same as the previous year.

Nine out of ten tenants - 90.6 per cent - said the council was good at keeping them informed about their services and decisions, also unchanged from 2021-22.

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The report also says that 16.7 per cent of court actions launched by the housing services resulted in evictions, with 11 cases due to rent arrears and one the result of anti-social behaviour - an improvement on the previous year.

A full copy of the report can be found on the East Ayrshire Council website.

Cumnock Chronicle: Councillor Jim McMahon, Spokesperson for Housing, Transport and Communities.Councillor Jim McMahon, Spokesperson for Housing, Transport and Communities. (Image: East Ayrshire Council)

Councillor Jim McMahon, EAC's spokesperson for housing, transport and communities, said: “The annual performance report to tenants details the council’s housing service performance in a clear and uncomplicated way.

"Our goal is to ensure that our tenants and stakeholders understand where funding has been invested across East Ayrshire and that they can easily see our successes over the last year.

“We also welcome any views on the report.

"If there is anything you would like to see in future performance reports, please let us know by contacting the customer liaison team or by providing feedback online by filling in a short smart survey.”

Highlights of the service's year listed in the report include the completion of eight new homes at Quarryknowe Court in Auchinleck, site completion at Mill O Shield Road and Hannahston Avenue in Drongan, and the start of work on building 17 new homes at Kilmarnock Road in Mauchline.