NORTH EA ST
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…
4000
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1000
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 NORTH 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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£442
£296
£385
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£258
Two parent family
Single parent family
Single adult
London
Rest of UK
London
Rest of UK
London
Rest of UK
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 NORTH EAST
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INDEPENDENT LIVING
A safe and welcoming place to call home
“ Argyll Court
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.
Arlington 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
Wandales Court
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Chapman Court
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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Good News for Brotton
Pastures new for local family
by Donna Matthews
by Jo Caveney
Hi, I’m Donna Matthews. Housing officer for Brotton, where we own 40 terraced street houses, known as the brickyard area. It can be tough to let them as there are a lots of other properties available. I often re-let them by word of mouth.
Hi, I’m Jo Caveney. Just before Christmas, I was delighted to be able to offer a family living in an overcrowded flat one of our lovely new homes at The Pastures in Knaresborough. They have settled in nicely and are looking forward to the future in their new home.
Contract Surveyor Angus McLeod and I wanted to improve the houses, and our chances of letting them, so we picked six of them for painting. My scheme improvement budget would fund the cost. The rest, as they say, is history! The six homes have now been painted and we have a budget to paint the rest in the summer. One resident, Miss Patton was particulalry pleased with the results as she was thinking about paying for her own painting! If you have a suggestion for improving your home, why not give me a ring?
A not so sweet smell on Radcliffe Crescent
BEFORE
On Radcliffe Crescent, AFTER Teasdale, because the bin store is very close to one property, unpleasant smells were getting into the resident’s home. The resident suggested higher bin store walls might help, so Caretaker Andy Ray got to work designing and building an extension. He worked right through the day to finish it, much to the relief of the resident. Problem solved!
Losing your home through criminal activity Hi, I’m Clive Ledner. I’m the anti-social behaviour officer in the North East.
Each year, some residents lose their homes due to serious breaches of their tenancy agreements. Some of these breaches are criminal, and include harassment and intimidation, possession of drugs, shoplifting, burglary and assault. In the last year, we have been to court for possession, or accepted the tenancy surrender, of 10 residents for criminal activity. We have ‘zero tolerance’ of that small number of residents who think they can use our homes for criminal behaviour. If we know a resident, or a member of their household, has been convicted in court of a relevant criminal offence, we will be in touch to discuss the future of the tenancy. If you are experiencing anti-social behaviour, please contact us.
Your views count… Last year, we asked 9000 residents in our Yorkshire and North East regions to take part in a satisfaction survey. We then invited those residents living in areas which recorded lower levels of satisfaction to take part in a more detailed survey to find out what the issues were. With their responses, we will look at how we can improve our services. If you are invited to take part in a survey, please do. Your views really do help us to improve services for everyone’s benefit. Visit the Hub for more details – see page 2.
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. So far this year, we have carried out two Accentwide reviews on how we manage complaints, and how we deal with reports of noise nuisance. Each review identified ideas for improving service, which we are currently working on. In our region, we have been looking at how we manage health and safety matters, such as gas servicing, asbestos and fire risk assessments. The findings have been reported to our CSC and we have an action plan. We will keep you updated. We are always on the lookout for volunteers to help us carry out scrutiny (or to become a member of our CSC). Jim Holborn is one of our resident CSC members. He told us “I feel I can understand both sides of the business and offer a good understanding to help fellow residents to work alongside Accent staff to enable excellent procedure is carried out with best value using best practice.” If you would like more details about joining our CSC, please get in touch.
A helping hand on Northumberland Street A resident (Mrs X), who lives on Northumberland Street, Horden, asked us for help with her finances. On visiting Mrs X, Housing Officer Linzie Hough noticed she had not received any Employment Seekers Allowance (ESA) since November, and was struggling to cope. Linzie called Tenancy Support Officer Maxine Aveyard, who visited Mrs X the next day to help. ESA She took a food parcel to see Mrs X through the next few days and she sorted her ESA claim. If you have money worries, please call us, we can help.
Making improvements on Windsor Road by Amanda Grange
Hi, I’m Amanda Grange. On a recent visit to Windsor Road, Linthorpe, I noticed the rotary dryers and the floor covering needed replacing, and we needed dustbins. Caretaker Dave NEW DRYERS Merrick and I got to work. Dave fitted new dryers and I arranged for new floor covering. I also talked to the council about getting some new bins. The end result? The scheme looks great, and it’s a safer and more welcoming place to live.
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
Your new Gas Servicing & Repairs Contractor Neil Cox, Director of Repairs and Maintenance @neilcox84
Following a recent procurement process to test the market and find suitable new contractors, we have appointed Mears to carry out gas servicing and repairs in your area. Their contract started on 3 April 2017. You will notice new vans and operatives attending to repairs and carrying out servicing. They will continue to provide the same high level of customer service.
Mears engineers will always show you identification when they call and be courteous and polite when visiting you. They will explain what they are going to do and take care whilst they are in your home. If you have any doubts about anyone calling at your home, please contact us.
STAY IN TOUCH! Address: 202 Linthorpe Road Middlesbrough TS1 3QW
Social media: Telephone: @accentmb 0345 678 0555 /accentmb 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