EAST
APRIL 2017
Andrew Kidds
A look at the many ways you can contact us…
Director of Customer Contact @Andkidds_Accent
We’re always looking at ways to improve how you can communicate with us. In the last two years we’ve launched our ‘Customer Portal’, introduced our new single contact centre in Shipley and introduced ‘online chat’ to our website www.accentgroup.org. We add to our online services all the time so it’s a good idea to log into your account often to see what’s new…
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Customers with active accounts who regularly use the ‘Accent Customer Portal’
Customer service advisors who have been trained in all matters of housing services
Online chats with our website visitors and customers since launching the service in 2016
The Accent Customer Portal Visit: https://login.accentgroup.org 24 hours a day | 7 days a week
Pay your rent or service charge
Report a repair
Report anti-social behaviour
Customer Portal
If English is not your first language
Andrew Williams Customer Services Director @accentgroupltd
On our website, we publish leaflets and information you might find useful. This information can be downloaded, but we can also print out and send you copies of leaflets and documents on request. By using the tab at the bottom of every page of our website, you can translate the content of the pages and leaflets into a number of different languages. Simply click on the ‘BrowseAloud’ link, to launch the toolbar (see below) which has a variety of features, including reading the page out loud and translating the page – you can even create an mp3 file! If you visit our customer publications section, (where our leaflets are), you can translate this newsletter into many languages in just a couple of clicks. We can also provide translation and interpretation services on request when you telephone or visit us. The BrowseAloud Toolbar…
Introducing the Hub ○ www.accentgroup.org/residents The Hub offers you the chance to give us your views on your home and neighbourhood and the services we provide. Your comments will help us to better understand your needs and priorities, and help to influence our decision-making. The Hub hosts regular surveys and polls which you can take part in and view the results in real time, and we can show how your views are improving our services. Your feedback is valuable to us so please visit The Hub and give us your views.
ACCENT NEWS EAST
you said
we did
Former Tenant Survey We asked more than 800 residents who had moved home in the last year why they did. We wanted to better understand the reasons why residents move and if there is anything we can do to stop our future residents from leaving us. We had a good response. In some cases, residents had left because their homes were not suited to their long-term needs.
Anti-social behaviour could also make someone move which shows us how important it is we tackle issues swiftly. We will use the information to try and reduce the number of people who leave their homes in future. You might ask why this would benefit you, but it does. We can spend a lot of money on bringing empty homes back into use. What we save can be reinvested into improving your homes and services. If you are thinking of moving out because you are not happy with us, or your needs have changed, please talk to us first. We may be able to help, or deal with any issues you have. We really would like to sort things out if we can and for you stay as our resident.
ring uR roTcO p y s u b n e e b C A e R ’v T e N W NEW CO r 2017 orEsNfo TS acEtM ntUrR oC wRcO neP Cleaning and Grounds Maintenance We are procuring a new regional contractor to carry out cleaning, window cleaning and grounds maintenance across all our schemes. We have a number of national, regional and local contractors who are bidding for this work. The tender closed on 17 March, and a new contractor will be in place in each region by the end of July 2017 (or July 2018 depending on when the current contracts end). We have looked at how we deliver these services across our schemes and have agreed a standard for at least weekly cleaning @ CONTACT US SEE PAGE 8
services that will ensure our schemes are well maintained, whilst still remaining affordable. We have included window cleaning on some schemes where it has been requested.
Repairs and Maintenance We are currently appointing new contractors across all our regions to carry out repair, maintenance and planned work. Our current contracts end in September, but we expect to have new contractors in place by July so we can make sure there is a smooth changeover. We will announce the successful contractors in June and we should be able to let you know who they are in our next issue in July. For more information, please contact us.
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The Benefit Cap Does it affect you?
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There is now a limit on the total amount of welfare benefits a person or family of working age can claim. It is called the benefit cap. It may affect you if you receive certain benefits. • Housing Benefit, Income Support, Jobseekers Allowance • Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit • Child Benefit, Child Tax Credit, Widowed Parents Allowance The cap limit is £384 a week for lone parents and couples with or without children, and £257 a week for single people. Some disability and war benefits are exempt from the cap. For more details about these, please visit www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/the-benefit-cap Housing benefit is the benefit which is reduced first. If you are affected, you remain responsible for paying any shortfall between your housing benefit and your rent.
We can help by checking if you are going to be affected, and we can refer you to our tenancy support team for help with benefits and budgeting advice. You may also find our ‘Help with Benefits and Debt’ leaflet on our website useful.
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ACCENT NEWS EAST
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INDEPENDENT LIVING
A safe and welcoming place to call home
“ Woodston Walk
I have always enjoyed my independence but, as I got older, it was nice to have the reassurance of knowing that help is on hand in an emergency.
Negus Court
ur independent living schemes O provide a welcoming and safe place to live. You have your own home in a secure environment. Each flat is ‘self-contained’ with its own living and kitchen area, bathroom and bedroom. On top of great living accommodation there are a wide range of benefits on offer including on-site scheme managers, communal facilities and social gatherings.
@ CONTACT US SEE PAGE 8
Sudbury Court
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Joan Wake Close
If you think the time is right for you to move to something smaller, and you like the idea of this extra reassurance, or if you have relatives or friends who might benefit, why not contact us? We’re happy to discuss an application or answer any questions you might have. We can also arrange for you to have a look round one of our schemes.
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NORTH BROOK CLOSE, GREETHAM
New Homes for people in need We know it’s getting harder for many people to find suitable, affordable housing – to rent or to buy. That is why we are always looking to build more homes to meet housing need in our area. Two new developments of homes for rent and shared ownership will soon be ready at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire and Greetham, Rutland. At Waterbeach, we are building 24 new homes, at Greetham we are building five. Adding these to the 30 new homes we will provide by converting our offices at Manor House, means we will provide 59 affordable new homes across our region for people in housing need. We advertise all our new homes to buy on our website’s ‘Find-a-Home’ page. If you’re interested in homeownership remember to keep checking to see what’s available.
Lena became an Accent resident over 12 years ago. She lives in one of our Independent Living Schemes in Peterborough. Sadly, Lena has had her share of health problems and, about two years ago, she became pretty much housebound. Since 2015, she has only been outside her first floor flat three times, and it took a team of paramedics to move her. But, a new chapter is beginning for Lena. Just a few weeks ago, she spent her last day staring at four walls – as she has for the last two years – when she moved into her new ground floor flat. Now, Lena can start to live a much better life and she can still come over to the community centre to be with her friends.
Scheme Manager Kerry Goodwin said, “this lady is a real inspiration to me as she has never failed to smile each and every day and share a laugh and a joke. I asked her once why she never feels down. She replied if I go down I will never come back up so I look on the brighter side of things, I’m alive and have a roof over my head.” Kerry added: “you cannot believe how this makes me feel, it makes my job worth it.”
MANOR HOUSE
Scrutinising your Services Our compliance and scrutiny committee, (CSC), is made up of residents and ‘independent’ (or non-resident) members. They carry out scrutiny exercises to test whether we are delivering good quality, value for money, services. Exercises range from simple surveys to a number of residents about a service, to ‘reality checking’ (testing whether a cleaning contractor is delivering the standards they should for example). They can also be a detailed review of a particular service. A number of reviews have already been carried out this year, including two Accent-wide reviews on how we manage complaints, and how we deal with reports of noise nuisance. Each review identified a number of ideas for improving service. We will keep you updated on our scrutiny findings and what improvements we make as a result. In our region, we are currently looking at why some people end their tenancies in their first year to see if there is more we can do to help people stay in their homes. The number isn’t very high, but we feel we may be able to do more to reduce the number even further. We are always on the lookout for volunteers to help us carry out scrutiny (or to become a member of our CSC). If you can spare some time (which can be as little as an hour a month), we’d love to hear from you.
LENA WITH SCHEME MANAGER KERRY
A new office in Peterborough As our current office on Lincoln Road is now too big for us, we have decided to move and convert Manor House into 30 new homes for rent. As not many of you visit the office, (most of you now contact us via our customer contact centre, or access your account on-line), we are proposing not to have a reception area at the new office. However, before doing this, we wanted to ask those of you who still visit us why you do. In most cases, it isn’t really necessary as, for instance, rent can be paid at any shop with a PayPoint service. If we decide not to have a reception area, we will let you know. There is absolutely no need to worry, this doesn’t mean you can’t contact us. Our customer contact centre is open between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday, and between 8am to 12pm on Saturday. Our customer portal can be accessed at any time - 24 hours a day, seven days a week and, because of mobile working, our housing officers and surveyors are out and about much more. They can arrange to visit you in your home, so not having a reception area doesn’t mean you will have any less contact with us. Thank you to everyone who responded to the survey. We will keep you updated on what is happening.
Right to Buy
UPDATE
From last year, you may remember the Government’s announcement to extend the Right to Buy Scheme to 1.3 million housing association tenants. What has happened since? Well, the Government has put back the start date until at least 2018 so more ‘pilot exercises’ can be done in certain areas to test how the scheme might work. Although we still do not know the exact details of how the scheme will work, we understand, from the information we do have, is that there are likely to be certain qualifying conditions.
While the scheme is still being planned, and even though it is unlikely to get underway for some time, you can still contact us if you think you might like to buy a home either now or in the future. We are keeping a list of residents who are interested, and we will also be selling some new shared ownership homes over the next couple of years. We will update our website when there is any further news or when new properties are available for sale.
The National Housing Federation have published a question and answer guide which can be downloaded from our website: www.accentgroup.org/media/160004/voluntary-right-to-buy.pdf
All in a good cause Damian Roche, Regional Housing Director @DRoche_Accent
Our staff are always eager to help those of us less fortunate. We always have a nominated charity to benefit from their generosity and, most recently, it was Peterborough Women’s Aid. This charity aims to relieve the distress and trauma experienced by women and children who have been affected by domestic violence.
Our monthly dress down days, raffles, lunches, and collections have, so far, raised over £330 for the charity. We also donated presents for the children at Christmas, and toiletries, clothes and other essential provisions. We change our nominated charity every year. If you would like to nominate a charity for us to support in the future, please get in touch.
STAY IN TOUCH! Address: Manor House 57 Lincoln Road Peterborough PE1 2RR
Social media: Telephone: @accentpb 0345 678 0555 /accentpb Email: customerservices@accentgroup.org
www.accentgroup.org
Our contact centre is open from 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday, and from 8am – 12pm on Saturday