Yvonne Baulk, the Council’s Head of Housing and Public Protection, has been honoured at the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland Awards for her Excellence in Leadership.
This award highlights the quality of leaders in housing who show innovation, vision and collaboration.
Yvonne has committed herself to public service for more than 35 years and, for the last decade, she has been responsible for leading, improving and developing award-winning Housing services here in North Ayrshire.
After accepting the honour, Yvonne paid tribute to her team at the Council.
She said: “Winning this award is truly down to my outstanding management team and all my staff across the service, as well as so many people across the Council who have worked together to support our tenants and residents, deliver our housebuilding programme and welcome refugees from across the globe.
“I’m proud to lead Housing and Public Protection and proud to work for North Ayrshire.
“The last four years have been the most demanding in my career, but they’ve also meant I’ve had the honour of working with so many Council colleagues and community partners to support our residents through the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and provide such an incredible response to the war in Ukraine and other refugee programmes by welcoming more than 600 people into North Ayrshire.
“The next few years are likely to be just as challenging, but I’m really looking forward to us all working together to ensure the best possible outcomes for the people we serve in our communities across North Ayrshire.”
In her role, Yvonne has driven forward the Council’s ambitious housebuilding programme, which aims to deliver more than 1,600 new-build Council homes across North Ayrshire.
Yvonne also helped steer the Council’s response to help support displaced people from Ukraine, Syria and Afghanistan; was at the forefront of the Council’s delivery of service during the Covid pandemic, when teams were asked to step out of their daily roles to do what was needed, from food preparation and delivery through to daily calls with vulnerable tenants to minimise isolation and ensure access to services; as well as helping to transform North Ayrshire’s housing service into a modern, climate-conscious service.
“Winning this award is truly down to my outstanding management team and all my staff across the service, as well as so many people across the Council who have worked together to support our tenants and residents, deliver our housebuilding programme and welcome refugees from across the globe. I’m proud to lead Housing and Public Protection and proud to work for North Ayrshire.”Yvonne Baulk, Head of Housing and Public Protection
Using managers’ individual skills to plan and communicate, Yvonne encouraged teams to step out of their daily roles to do what was needed; from food preparation and delivery, through to daily calls with vulnerable tenants to minimise isolation and ensure access to services.
Committed to ‘growing our own’, Yvonne has worked to reshape services and develop a Housing Leadership Academy, ensuring that every officer, irrespective of grade, has access to the necessary training and support to unlock their potential in order to meet their career aspirations, while ensuring effective succession planning.
The academy also aims to work with local secondary schools to offer training and apprenticeship opportunities, informing career paths for school leavers.
Yvonne has shown commitment to delivering services of the highest quality which not only meet people’s needs but transform lives, enabling the successful development and implementation of the ambitious strategic outcomes and targets detailed within consecutive North Ayrshire Local Housing Strategies and Strategic Housing Investment Plans.
During the Covid pandemic, her team immediately helped to protect and serve the most vulnerable tenants.
Yvonne has developed strong teams, motivated and empowered managers and officers from across services to work together to create and deliver high performing services – and this is why her senior managers nominated her for this prestigious award.
Under her leadership, Housing Services has transformed into an integrated, empowered team with a single focus – to deliver the best outcomes for tenants, service users and staff.
Yvonne is also Vice Chair of ALACHO, the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, where she has helped develop national policy.