Accent South Report 2014_SOUTH 10/10/2014 10:22 Page 1
Annual Report to Residents
2013/14
ACCENT SOUTH
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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: The new showhome from our latest development at Franklands Park, Addlestone. 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 • Creating a new housing team, so our housing officers can be out and about more helping residents. • Holding roadshows across our region, meeting residents and their families and hearing what matters to them. • Working through our tenancy sustainability team to help you manage your tenancy and make the most of the money you get in. • Launching a new residents’ group to encourage even more of you to have your say.
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Tel: 0345 678 0577
Email: camberley@accentgroup.org
• Holding a successful recruitment event in Camberley, helping local residents to find new jobs. • Opening a new multi-use games area in Camberley. We know there is more to do. Over the next year we’ll be continuing to improve the services we provide to you. We’d like to know where you’d like to see us do even better, so please tell us. Take a look inside to see the progress we’re making – and let us know what you think by contacting us. Facebook: facebook.com/accentcmy
Twitter: @accentcmy
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
59% 58%
satisfied with complaint handling
Tel: 0345 678 0577
satisfied with complaint outcome
owed in unpaid rent
?!
FINAL NOTICE
evictions due to arrears
Email: camberley@accentgroup.org
Facebook: facebook.com/accentcmy
Twitter: @accentcmy
Arrears
ÂŁ1.44 m 17
gas safety certificates in date for all properties
Complaints
ÂŁ4.5 m 100%
spent on improving your homes
Investment
Investment
79% 78%
satisfaction with repairs
Satisfaction
Complaints
72.6% 67.8%
on average to complete a repair
ASB
Arrears
92.5% 5.8 days 91.8%
repairs completed first time Repairs
Repairs
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Far right: Accent staff enjoying the sun at the summer roadshow in James Road, Camberley. Right: We officially launched our ‘Personal, Modern and Better’ service in November. A key feature of the service was five locally based contact centres.
Keeping you involved Getting more involved We’re making it even easier for you to keep in touch with us and help shape our services.
Contacting us For phone contact, we have an 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 office in Camberley is 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 you involved We want you to help us improve our services and we want to give you more opportunities to have your say.
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Tel: 0345 678 0577
Email: camberley@accentgroup.org
We have been working hard to give you more chances to have your say. Across Accent, we are committed to encouraging residents to get involved in a way that suits them. Our customer service committees, which have at least three resident members in each region, keep a close eye on how we are performing. In Accent South, our new residents’ group aims to bring together a diverse group of residents to influence what we do.
When things go wrong We’ve updated our complaints process. If you have a complaint, we will try to resolve your issue quickly. If you are still unhappy, the problem can be referred to a manager or to the regional housing director.
How we’re doing In our Camberley office, we dealt with more than 50,000 contacts last year. We answered 88% of phone calls in an average of 22 seconds. We dealt with 77 formal complaints in the year. Of those residents who replied to our satisfaction survey, 59% were happy with the way their complaint was handled, and 58% were satisfied with the outcome. We know we have more to do here. Our overall resident satisfaction was 79%. 61% of residents were happy we were listening and responding to their views.
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Twitter: @accentcmy
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Your homes High standards
Good repairs
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.
We aim to provide a cost-effective repairs service which gets repairs right first time wherever possible.
When we have fitted new kitchens and bathrooms, we have offered you a choice of units, worktops and tiles. We aim to achieve this standard in all your homes by 2020. This year we have renegotiated and extended our contract with our preferred contractor, Lovells. We have also carried out a programme to improve fire safety at our sheltered schemes.
Tel: 0345 678 0577
Email: camberley@accentgroup.org
How we’re doing Across Accent, 95% of our homes meet the Decent Homes standard. In Accent South, more than 89% meet the standard. We have a programme to bring the rest up to the standard this year. 100% of our homes meet gas compliance safety standards. Last year we spent more than £4.45m on planned works. 92.5% of repairs were completed the first time, and 89.5% of repairs appointments were kept. Reported repairs were completed within an average of 5.8 days. Your satisfaction with our repairs service was 91.8%.
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Twitter: @accentcmy
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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 offer a range of tenancies, including starter tenancies designed to help our new residents meet their responsibilities. 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. At Accent South, we have downsizing and mutual exchange schemes for those residents who want to move, including those affected by the bedroom tax. We run roadshows to help residents who want to swap. We are also
working with residents who need support to stay in their homes and with their finances. We have a specialist team helping our housing officers and residents manage rent arrears. We worked with 122 residents to help them maintain their tenancies
How we’re doing Across Accent South, we let 248 homes last year. On average, it took us 20 days to re-let a home and 43 days to re-let our sheltered homes. At the end of the financial year, Accent South residents owed us £1,444,000 in unpaid rent. We aim to reduce this debt to £850,000 this year. We take debt seriously. Last year we evicted 17 residents who were unwilling or unable to pay their rent.
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: • Working with our partners, including the police and other agencies, to tackle anti-social behaviour. • Introducing local improvement plans to improve services in individual neighbourhoods and to tackle issues like anti-social behaviour. • Training our new housing officers to manage their patch effectively. • Running regular staff on site days to identify local priorities.
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Tel: 0345 678 0577
Email: camberley@accentgroup.org
• Inviting residents along to our regular estate inspections.
How we’re doing Last year, we handled 146 cases of anti-social behaviour. Overall satisfaction with the way we handled cases was 72.6%, with 67.8% satisfied with the outcome. We will continue to work hard to improve your satisfaction. 78% of you were satisfied with your neighbourhood as a place to live. 75% of you felt that your service charge represented value for money.
Facebook: facebook.com/accentcmy
Twitter: @accentcmy
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Franklands Park, Addlestone. Phase two of the development is currently under contsruction and is due for completion in 2015.
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.
Tel: 0345 678 0577
Email: camberley@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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Twitter: @accentcmy
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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
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: camberley@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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