4pp Accent News - North West _ Feb '14_Layout 1 29/01/2014 15:39 Page 1
Excellent Good
North West West
Satisfactory
FEB 2014
In September, some of you received the STAR (survey of tenants and residents) satisfaction questionnaire. We use the results of this survey, which is carried out every two years, to understand your views about the service we provide, what is important to you and to find out where we need to improve. We would like to say a huge thank you to those of you who responded – 40% of residents and 30% of homeowners. With such a great response, we have a true reflection of your overall views. In summing up the results, 83% of our general needs residents, and 91% of our sheltered scheme residents are satisfied with our overall service. This figure is similar to previous years – but we would like to do better. Unfortunately, at 55%, less of our homeowners are satisfied with their services. We will be looking at how we can improve this.
THA NK Y With such OU!
respo a nse, great we h a true reflec ave t of yo ur ov ion e views rall .
More of you are accessing services online with tablets and smartphones. This is especially good news as, in the future, the only way to claim benefits will be online because of government plans to eventually remove face-to-face services. We are not surprised to see that your repairs and maintenance service is what is ‘most important’ to you. Your satisfaction is steady, as it has been over the past few years. This year’s figure is 81% but we will seek to improve this. There are some regional differences in your views so our local staff are working closely with their customer service committees and managers to develop a plan of action for improving your satisfaction. We’ll keep you up-to-date on progress.
A big thank you to everyone who took part in our recent automated newsletter survey. Over 19,000 calls were made and over 22% (around 3,700) of you responded. By far, most of you, 81%, want to continue to get your newsletters by post, but 19%, (700) of you
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would like to receive your magazine electronically. Making sure we send you our communications in the way you want to receive them is a critical part of our
burnley@accentgroup.org
promise to deliver our new personal, modern and better service. Over the next few weeks, we will be looking at how we can best do that. We’ll keep you up-to-date.
www.accentgroup.org
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We are looking for a Housing Apprentice to work in our new tenancy sustainability team in the Burnley office. This full time, one-year work based training programme will help you understand what housing associations do, and gain the skills, knowledge and understanding needed for a career in our industry.
SALARY £176.05 per week
If you have good organisational skills and a ‘can do’ attitude, this could be an exciting chance for you to join us.
INTERESTED? Apply using the apprenticeship website: http://bit.ly/1auPA41 – ref: VAC000374451 The closing date for applications is 21 February 2014. Interviews will be held at our Burnley office on Bethesda Street during the week of 3 March 2014. Successful candidates will start during the week of 24 March.
For more information about the role, please contact Kate James on: Tel: 01733 295 421 Email: kate.james@accentgroup.org
STRUGGLING? Need advice or pointing in the right direction? Our new tenancy sustainability service can help you: • Set up your new home – help you find affordable furniture and white goods, and with your utilities. • Understand your rights and responsibilities as a resident. • With low level anti-social behaviour. • Apply for benefits and make the most of your income. • Get a bank or a credit union account • Find training, employment, education or volunteering work. • Deal with debts and provide help with budgets.
Feeling the pinch? Joining your local credit union could be the answer.
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• Apply for affordable credit. • Find support for any health issues, or with alcohol or drug issues. • Find specialist services you may need. • Get involved in activities and your local community. We can support you for up to 12 weeks and, if you need support for longer, we can refer you to other support services in your area. Contact us if you’d like to know more.
We are setting up partnerships with credit unions across the region. Credit unions can offer you many services. With their low cost loans, you can avoid payday loans, doorstep lenders and weekly payment stores. You could borrow £200 and pay back just £220.
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burnley@accentgroup.org
The Pennine Community Credit Union provides the Co-op Electrical Scheme. The scheme allows you to buy new electrical goods and pay weekly, but at a reasonable price. This means there are no upfront costs for expensive items and you can keep tighter control on your household budget.
www.accentgroup.org
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We need you to get involved! Over the past few weeks, we have been working on our resident engagement plan for 2014. There are lots of different ways in which you can get involved. As a member of our customer service committee for instance, (see below), or by scrutinising our services. You might just want to get involved in your local neighbourhood or community. Over the next few months, we will be out and about on your estates finding out what you would like in your area.
To share your views and find out what’s happening near you, ‘like’ our Facebook page and we’ll enter you into a prize draw to win £60 in vouchers. Good luck!
Can YOU help us to make a difference? Our North West Customer Services Committee (CSC) is made up of the chair, three independent members and three resident members. They help us to improve our performance and the services we provide to our residents by challenging us to do even better. The CSC meets four times a year formally, and has up to a further four informal meetings or training days. We currently have a vacancy for a resident member. Are you interested in getting involved and helping us to make a real difference to peoples’ homes, communities and lives? If you want to know more about what would be involved, please contact Regional Housing Director Shaun Finegan on 0345 6780 590 or email shaun.finegan@accentgroup.org for further details or an informal chat.
Rent Direct Accounts Credit unions can help you manage your money and you can have your wages or benefits paid directly into your account. Your rent and other bills will be paid straight out, with the balance paid onto a pre-paid debit card, in weekly, fortnightly or monthly instalments. You’ll know exactly what you have left to spend and you won’t have to worry about unexpected bills! Contact us if you would like to know more.
You can ring us from 8am – 8pm on Monday to Friday and 9am – 12pm on Saturdays
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We’ve improved the way we deal with your complaints
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Sometimes, we can get things wrong! When this happens, so we can try to put them right as soon as possible, we have changed the way we deal with complaints. We consider complaints from anyone who receives a service from us, and we may also consider complaints from people who are not Accent residents but are affected by complaints as they live close by. If you contact us with a complaint, we will see if we can sort it to your satisfaction quickly. If we can, we will. We call this an ‘informal’ complaint. We will still record these complaints so we can use
Rent and Service Charge Payments
them to improve our service, but we won’t spend time writing to you to acknowledge your complaint, and write again to explain what we have done about it. If we cannot resolve your complaint quickly, or you want to make a ‘formal’ complaint, a manager will contact you to discuss it, carry out a full investigation and, if we are upholding your complaint, write to you to tell you how we are going to sort it. If you are not happy with the outcome, you can ask for a review. It will be carried out by the local regional housing director.
This will complete our internal complaints process. If you are still unhappy, you can ask an MP, a local councillor or the Accent Residents’ Complaints Panel to help. They are ‘designated persons’ and we will work with them to try and resolve your complaint to your satisfaction. If you are still unhappy, you still have the right to contact the Ombudsman Service and ask them to look into your complaint. For more information, please contact your local contact centre, full details below.
It is a term of your tenancy agreement that you must pay your rent at the start of the weekly or monthly period, depending on the type of tenancy you have. Many of you still pay us in arrears, not in advance, which means the account builds arrears before it is paid.
Stay in touch! Address: 2nd Floor, Stephen House Bethesda Street Burnley BB11 1PR
Telephone: 0345 678 0590 Email: burnley@accentgroup.org Website: www.accentgroup.org
making a difference… improving homes, communities and lives
Social media: /accentbrn @accentbrn
Please arrange to pay your rent in advance if you do not already do so, as per your tenancy agreement.