At a sector level:

• Best practice in monitoring and evaluation, including strategies

to engage service users and improve response rates to feedback

surveys, should be shared to help build evidence of the impact

of the sector at an aggregate scale.

• Support to enable home improvement services to demonstrate

their impact and ‘make the case’ for their services should

be enhanced. This could include the development of new

and existing toolkits to assess financial benefits of services,

introducing training to better support the development

of research and evaluation skills within staff teams etc.

Staffing and skills

Local authorities and home improvement services should consider:

• The benefits of implementing a Trusted Assessor programme

and discuss and work with all involved partners to implement

schemes where possible. Clear collaboration is needed from

all parties including the local authority, home improvement

agency/service and assessment teams to make the system work.

Efficient assessment systems often have occupational

therapists and Trusted Assessors working together within

multidisciplinary teams.

• Expanding training and work shadowing opportunities between

roles such as OTs and handyperson teams. These occasions

can be used to good effect and provide valuable sharing

and insight into the home improvement service offer and

processes, resulting in higher-quality referrals.

• Utilising funding flexibly to resource staff roles that can support

the customer journey and improve the response to the demand for

services. More specialist roles and training are likely to be needed

as services expand and new services are developed. For example,

some areas have made a business case to utilise underspend on

their DFG budget to create new Trusted Assessor posts in order

for surveyors to be freed up to process more complex cases