Accent North West Report 2014_North West 10/10/2014 10:23 Page 1
Annual Report to Residents
2013/14
ACCENT NORTH WEST
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Good housing matters. We are committed to making our homes and communities the very best they can be. That’s why we are improving how we work to make sure our neighbourhoods make us all proud. Our offer of a ‘personal, modern and better’ service is dedicated to working alongside you to provide services which work for you. We have set standards for the level of service you can expect from us as your landlord. Those standards focus on the issues which you say matter the most to you. Our progress on achieving these standards is monitored by our regulator, the Homes and Communities Agency.
So how are we doing? In this report, we show how we are performing and how we are matching up to our targets in your area.
Far left: Dawn Astin, Tenancy Sustainability Manager, chats with a resident at the We Make a Difference Day at Netherton House. Left: David Orr, Chief Executive of the National Housing Federation (far left) joined Accent Chair Gwyneth Sarkar, and Chief Executive Gordon Perry (right) for a tour of St Catherines, our regeneration project in Manningham, Bradford.
This year’s highlights • Giving you more opportunities to get in touch with us and influence what we do. • Introducing a new advisory panel for our region, with volunteer residents to check our services are up to scratch. • Spending more than £5m on planned works to your homes. • Working to improve our maintenance service to carry out repairs quickly and to a consistently high standard. • Helping our most vulnerable residents and those in financial difficulties to make the most of their money, or move into training or work. 2
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Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
We know there is more to do. We will be continuing to invest in your homes and neighbourhoods in the year to come. If you have any ideas where improvements could be made, get in touch. Take a look inside to see the progress we’re making – and let us know what you think by contacting us.
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ASB Satisfaction
satisfaction with handling anti-social behaviour satisfied with outcome of anti-social behaviour
overall satisfaction with Accent as a landlord satisfaction with neighbourhood
88% 82%
satisfied with complaint handling
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satisfied with complaint outcome
owed in unpaid rent
?!
FINAL NOTICE
evictions due to arrears
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Arrears
ÂŁ923 k 31
gas safety certificates in date for all properties
Complaints
ÂŁ5 m 100%
spent on improving your homes
Investment
Investment
87% 85%
satisfaction with repairs
Satisfaction
Complaints
86.9% 84.8%
on average to complete a repair
ASB
Arrears
86.6% 6.8 days 94.5%
repairs completed first time Repairs
Repairs
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Far right: Following Staff on Site days a number of estate improvement plans have been drawn up.
Keeping you involved We’re making it even easier for you to keep in touch with us and help shape our services. For phone contact, we have introduced a 0345 number which is charged at the local rate.We have extended our telephone opening hours to 8am to 8pm, Monday to Friday and 8am to noon on Saturday. Our local offices at Burnley and Barrow are open from Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, except Wednesday when we open at 10am to allow time for staff training. Where we cannot deal with your query over the phone, and you do not live close to our office, we will visit you at a reasonable time to suit you. We have changed the role of our housing officers so they are out and about on your estates more often, talking to you and resolving any issues you may have. This means they are not always in the office. In their absence, our customer advisers will be able to resolve the majority of your calls. Housing officers return unresolved calls within 48 hours or, for longer absences, arrange a call back on their behalf. You can contact us via text and email or log an enquiry on our website. We also use Facebook and Twitter.
Getting more involved We have been working hard to give you more chances to have your say. Across Accent, we launched our new resident engagement strategy, and introduced customer service committees in each of our regions. Resident members on these committees oversee and challenge our performance.
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Tel: 0345 678 0590
Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
Right: We officially launched our ‘Personal, Modern and Better’ service in November. A key feature of the service was five locally based contact centres.
We have streamlined the number of formal tenants’ groups. In the North West, we now have an advisory panel, with volunteer residents who review our estate inspection process to check on the quality of our services. We run local events and focus groups to get resident feedback. We are also supporting our existing resident forums, for example, the Barrow group. This group has its own budget of £13,000 to spend on estate improvements.
When things go wrong We’ve updated our complaints process. If you have a complaint, we try to resolve your issue quickly at the first point of contact. If you’re still unhappy, the problem can be referred to a manager or to the regional housing director.
How we’re doing Accent North West dealt with 55,000 customer contacts last year. We answered 95% of phone calls within 15 seconds We received 62 complaints in 2013/14. Of those who replied to our satisfaction survey, 88% were happy with how their complaint was handled, and 82% were satisfied with the outcome. In our satisfaction survey, our overall level of satisfaction was 87%. 72% of you were happy we were listening and responding to your views.
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Your homes High standards We are committed to ensuring all our homes meet even higher standards than the government’s Decent Homes standard. Our ‘Accent Standard’ includes double glazing, over bath showers, composite doors, hard-wired smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, extractor fans in kitchens and bathrooms, anti-slip flooring, sure stop switches, adequate loft insulation, decorated kitchens and bathrooms and safe outdoor areas. When we have fitted new kitchens and bathrooms, we have offered you a choice of units, worktops and tiles. We aim to achieve the ‘Accent standard’ in all your homes by 2020.
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We are looking to improve health and safety in our sheltered schemes. We’ve also set aside £30,000 to improve standards on our most difficult to let homes.
Good repairs We aim to provide a cost-effective repairs service which gets repairs right first time wherever possible.
How we’re doing More than 98.6% of Accent North West homes meet the Decent Homes standard, and we plan to bring those that do not up to the standard this year. 100% of our homes meet gas compliance safety standards. 86.6% of repairs were completed first time, and 91.5% of repairs appointments were kept. Reported repairs were completed within an average of 6.8 days. Your satisfaction with our repairs service was 94.5%.
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Letting your homes We want to rent our homes to new residents in a fair, transparent and efficient way. We aim to collect your rent fairly, and we want to provide a range of homes for different needs. We aim to make it easy for you to exchange homes if you want to do so. We are reviewing the way we let our homes across Accent to make sure we have a consistent approach which makes the best use of our homes. In the North West, we have run a targeted campaign to help those of you affected by the bedroom tax, and we have downsizing and mutual exchange schemes for those of you who want to move. We help new residents understand the responsibilities of taking on their new home.
We are also working with residents who need support to stay in their homes and with their finances.
How we’re doing Across Accent North West we let 600 homes last year. On average, it took us 30.7 days to re-let a home. At the end of the financial year, residents in our region owed Accent £923,000. We aim to reduce this debt to £667,000 this year. We take debt seriously. We evicted 31 residents who were unwilling or unable to pay their rent last year. We helped 64 households manage their tenancy and make the most of their income through our tenancy sustainability service.
Your community We aim to work with you to make sure your neighbourhoods are clean and safe places to live, and to help you make the most of your lives. Our initiatives include: • Local action plans to drive improvements in services and to tackle issues like anti-social behaviour and empty homes. • Regular ‘on site’ days and events where you can raise local issues. • A programme of improved security and CCTV upgrades. • A community investment plan and £60,000 investment to back work and training projects, digital schemes and financial advice.
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Tel: 0345 678 0590
Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
• Strong community partnerships with, for example, credit unions to provide affordable financial advice, and the police and other organisations to tackle anti-social behaviour.
How we’re doing: Last year, we handled 199 cases of anti-social behaviour. Overall satisfaction with the way we handled cases was 86.9%, and 84.8% were satisfied with the outcome. 85% of you were satisfied with your neighbourhood as a place to live. 71% of you felt your service charge represented good value for money.
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Pictured: Animating Barrow is an exciting intergenerational project between our younger residents from Silverdale Street Young Persons Accommodation and our older residents from Station View Extra Care Scheme – using storytelling and creative media as a way to share common stories and create a lasting legacy through the creation of three animations.
Value for money We want to be a landlord of choice, delivering top quality services and investing more in our homes and communities. We are committed to spending our money efficiently, so we can put even more into making our communities places where you are proud to live. Across Accent, we have already saved some £7m a year, and value for money will continue to be a top priority. Across Accent, our targets over the next six years, up to 2020, include: • Investing £320m in our homes, communities and services. • Developing 525 new homes in the communities which need them most. • Delivering £22m savings and high performance in the way we buy our goods and services.
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Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
• Making the best use of mobile working and digital technology to provide accessible, high quality services. • Improving resident and staff satisfaction levels to above 90% • Investing in our staff team. • Improving performance in the key areas of rent arrears and how quickly we let our homes through our investment in income management and tenancy sustainability teams. We aim to cut rent arrears from 4.29% to 2.65% and voids from 1.8% to 1% by 2020. We take part in the National Fraud Initiative, which means we share information about our residents and staff with other organisations. For more information, visit our website or contact the business assurance team on businessassurance@accentgroup.org or 01274 717 506.
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Tel: 0345 678 0590
We need to change that! We are joining with housing associations, tenant groups, and private housebuilders across England to get all the political parties to sign up to ending the housing crisis within a generation.
Show your support for the Homes for Britain Campaign by sending us a picture of you holding up our campaign notice and messages using the space below. We’ll use all your photos as part of our support for the campaign. #homesforbritain
Email: burnley@accentgroup.org
Find out more about the campaign at www.homesforbritain.org.uk
Please write a message of support in this box, photograph yourself holding the message then send it to us at: burnley@accentgroup.org
‘Homes for Britain’ is a national campaign to get housing firmly on the election agenda. There is a housing crisis in this country and our children could find themselves unable to afford their own home, yet housing is not a priority for voters.
We’re supporting the Homes for Britain campaign…
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