A recipe for success
Annual report 2007/8
Great Homes, Great Neighbourhoods, Great People
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Foreword from Ged and Ian We want to improve - continually. Our aim will always be to be better again. But there is one issue where we are content just to keep our position. For the third year running, we head the satisfaction league table of large landlords. This vote of confidence from our tenants makes us proud of our staff and Board members' efforts. The Group's mission remains delivery of the pledges made at transfer in 2000 within resources available. But as we confidently deliver those pledges, we're impatient to achieve in other areas. The year we report here was good, but our journey is to be
Ged Cooney Chair, New Charter Housing Trust Limited
great. Customers' hopes and expectations of us rise each year. We don't want to disappoint.
Ian Munro Group Chief Executive
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Pick of the crop We are delighted tenant satisfaction showed 92% of customers were happy with New Charter.
Even better, 55% of tenants said they were very satisfied. For the third year in succession, this rating puts us at the top of the league table of large landlords in England. New Charter tenants record 87% satisfaction with repairs services, the underlying reason for our high overall ratings. Tenant opinion was measured independently in January 2008. Aksa recorded outstanding improvement from its tenants, who were surveyed separately but at the same time. It posted impressive and improved results with overall satisfaction and satisfaction with participation both increasing to 87% and 89% respectively. This puts Aksa well ahead of the BME association average and among the best in the country.
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The core business The Housing Corporation awarded us four 'green lights' for viability, governance, management and development - the best assessment possible. Our rent collection services are second to none, bringing in over 100% of the debit. We introduced pre tenancy support to prepare tenants to take on tenancies successfully, and this complements our financial inclusion work. Systems improvement reduced the number of void properties. We beat our target of 285 homes (1.95%) by 49. Our lettings process went through a successful change to Choice Based Lettings, allowing applicants to bid for properties advertised each week. This has proved successful for both us and customers, with 1243 homes advertised, producing 63350 bids from 5970 bidders. Bidding over the web proved the most popular way of registering interest. It has reduced time taken to relet homes, and follow up survey evidence shows higher satisfaction with choice of home.
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Investment We completed our planned investment programme for windows and doors replacement, two years earlier than originally promised. Although we improved many homes, we also turned our attention to planning for the next decade. We held several events to collect the views and aspirations of our tenants. By listening to our customers, we continued to improve the environmental attractiveness of our neighbourhoods. Large-scale schemes have been tendered and started on site. Multiple smallscale sites are also in progress. We see the long-term value of creating not just great homes, but great neighbourhoods.
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Regeneration and support Our maturity as an organisation meant that we were able to move into and lead regeneration initiatives affecting our neighbourhoods. We further increased involvement in community leadership by funding specific regeneration activities. Residents have been supported to engage in community programmes, as well as learning, development and worklessness initiatives. Tenants have enthusiastically contributed to the area's successful efforts in the regional and national contests for Britain in Bloom. Our Aksa staff took housing support work to benefit more residents of Oldham than in previous years, and supported households in several high-profile cases which featured in local media. We worked with Tameside Sports Development to promote healthy living, especially among young people, with the Great Sports initiative.
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Resident involvement We brand resident involvement as 'you too!' It's a reminder that although we have high ratings for participation, there's always room for more tenants to help us improve. We reviewed our resident involvement strategy and introduced
Our 2008 New Charter customer satisfaction rating for
new ways of involvement for customers. We recruited tenants
participation and involvement was lower than in previous years,
to a Black and Minority Ethnic forum and to a Disability Forum.
although it still maintained our position at the top of the league
Both will allow us to test service delivery as well as ensuring we
table of large landlords. We introduced a range of different
remain ahead of legislative obligations.
involvement techniques including town forums and celebrated European Neighbours Day. Aksa's rating soared to 89%, which places it at the forefront of BME housing associations. The survey also showed a further increase in satisfaction with neighbourhood management services. Over the last two years this has increased from 73% to 84%. We maintained our regular consultation arrangements with tenants and leaseholders to understand their opinions and needs; and have shaped services accordingly. We have stepped up our work on inclusivity and reviewed targets in our Equality and Diversity Action Plan. We began a drive to profile customers, especially on their communication needs and expect the data collection - as well as our service responses to this - to continue throughout 2008/9.
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The New Charter Academy Our sponsorship of a new Academy in Tameside sets us ahead of many other regeneration agencies. It is one of the most innovative steps we have taken. The New Charter Academy opens in September 2008 on the sites of two predecessor schools, before a new campus is built at Broadoak for occupation two years later. With a new sixth form, it will provide a centre of learning for 1650 students. We are the first RSL to take this step which further reinforces our proposition that we are 'iN business for neighbourhoods'. Providing better opportunities for young people seems the logical step to us. We want everyone to achieve more than they thought possible.
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Building Much of our success on investment and repairs is attributable to our own Building Company. It remains in great demand as an excellent repairs and maintenance contractor, and has been successful in winning work inside and outside the housing sector. Performance on repairs remains excellent. We maintained
The Building Company's partnership with the Wai Yin Chinese
100% performance on attending to all urgent repairs, and only in
Women's Society attracted much interest. This provides practical
one month did we fail to achieve 100% for our (4-hour)
learning and encouragement to women of all backgrounds to
emergency standard.
take up careers and trades in construction.
Our routine repairs performance once again comfortably exceeded Housing Corporation targets. The average time to complete 'all repairs' has fallen once again, from 6.17 days at March 2007 to 5.44 days (March 2008). Year-end figures for 2007/8 for gas servicing show a slight drop in performance with just under 99% of homes having a valid Gas Certificate at the end of March. Access to some homes remains a problem, and Power of entry notices have been backed up by possession proceedings where necessary. Several tenants were evicted in the last quarter for failure to let us in - astonishing, as it is their safety we are protecting.
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Ripe for development For the first time in our history, stock levels increased. New homes we provided outweighed the homes we sold to tenants. These new homes announced a new drive for growth. Planned
Our development of the Aksa brand will continue to provide
acquisitions in Ashton-under-Lyne and in Nottinghamshire will
new homes across Greater Manchester. A mixed tenure
see more than 3500 homes added next year. The Trust Board
development at Manor Road in Oldham will provide homes for
agreed an ambitious plan to increase ownership to 30,000 in the
rent and sale.
next five years, including a ÂŁ9.5m development programme now delivering 115 new homes across Tameside and Oldham. After a successful ballot of Gedling Borough Council's tenants, the stock is planned to transfer to a new subsidiary of the Group, Gedling Homes in November 2008. Secretary of State James Purnell MP opened our unique development at Beaumont Place in Stalybridge (see picture right). These 25 apartments replaced a local authority care home nearby and provide adults with learning difficulties their first experience of independent living. We entered market renting. We refurbished Hatton Court, Hattersley as our first high-quality scheme, providing 12 apartments aimed at a different market. And we attracted the world light-welterweight boxing champion to launch the homes!
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We sold our professional services to other landlords, in training, systems improvement skills, revenues, legal advice and tenancy compliance.
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Fruits of success Winning is good. Our position at the top of the tenant satisfaction league is matched by also recording the highest rating from tenants for their opportunities to participate. Investors in People gave us four pats on the back. We
One of our tenants, Irvin Chappell of Dukinfield not only won
undertook four different IiP assessments and achieved superb
our garden contest, but went on to be acclaimed as Tameside's
results in all - excellence in the IiP Profile assessment for New
Supreme Gardener. The green-fingered residents of Central
Charter, individual awards for Worklife Balance and Recruitment
estate were honoured by the Royal Horticultural Society.
and Selection for the Group, and retention of IiP status for Aksa. Our innovative customer focus training, compulsory for all
Awards 2007 in two categories. One of our tenants, Darren
employees and featuring the direct involvement of tenants, was
Holmes was finalist in the Best Neighbour category. Fairfield
rewarded with a National Training Award (NW region).
estate in Droylsden was in the final three in the Peaceful and
Attention to Health and Safety brought both the Trust and the Building Company silver medals from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. Our aim is gold next time. Our pioneering reward scheme to improve citizenship slashed public order offences involving young people in north Ashton. It also helped the school we worked with achieve its best ever academic results.
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We were proud to be shortlisted as finalists in Neighbourhood
Better Neighbourhood section. Although neither won the ultimate prize, our Fairfield residents told us “we don't need an award to know our lives are better�.
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Our performance in 2007/8 There are three RSL companies working together
Property Portfolio
in the New Charter Housing Trust Group. The
a. Distribution by Borough
data listed here covers all three. Figures are at
Bury - 72
Manchester - 97
31st March 2008 or for the 2007/8 financial year. Oldham - 473
Tameside - 14402
The RSLS are: 8000
b. Decent Homes
7634
7000
6739 6000
Nearly every Aksa property complies with Decent Homes (most of Aksa's stock is relatively new). The New Charter Housing (North and South) stock is older and still undergoing massive investment and some non-decent properties remain to be completed within the investment programme.
5000 4000
2000
On average we invested £2717 in every property during the year. We spend about £161,500 on investment and repairs on our properties every working day.
1000
c. Energy Efficiency
3000
0
671
Aksa Oldham, Manchester, Bury, Tameside
New Charter Housing (North)
New Charter Housing (South)
Ashton-under-Lyne, Stalybridge, Mossley, Droylsden
Hyde, Denton, Audenshaw, Dukinfield, Longdendale
TOTAL = 15044
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96.7% of our homes meet the Decent Homes Standard.
All our new property has very high energy efficiency standards. For our older homes we are investing heavily in cavity/loft insulation and energy efficient boilers and windows. The measure for housing energy efficiency is the SAP score. Our SAP score is 70.8 The national average for similar RSL groups is 67.
d. Leased Property Number of properties sold but freehold retained (eg flats) – 228
Rent Levels
Rent Collection
Our rents remain very affordable, well below market rents and below average rents for RSLs in the North West.
Rent collected as a percentage of rent debit (less rent lost due to voids)
Average net weekly rent (excluding service charges):
5.4%
Increase in average rent
Average Rents General Needs Housing (Tameside) £pw Bedsit
46.97
1 bed
54.79
2 bed
61.80
3 bed
65.08
4 bed
66.53
Average Rent Supported and Housing for Older People (Tameside)
100.44%
Rent collected as % of rent debit Annual Rent debit
£50,235,074 4.69%
% of rent debit in current arrears
1.93%
% of rent lost due to voids
0.89%
% of rent debit written off in year
£pw Bedsit
49.51
1 bed
56.13
2 bed
61.20
3 bed
61.45
4 bed
68.90
Letting Property Bury - 4
Oldham - 22
Manchester - 7
Tameside - 1421
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Our performance in 2007/8
continued
Letting Property continued
Repairs Performance Last year we undertook 18465 routine repairs. Our target timescale for completion of these repairs is 28 days. 96.4% of repairs were completed within this timescale. The average time between the tenant reporting a repair and the repair being completed is 5.44 days.
Lettings by Ethnic Origin of Household New Charter Housing (North/South)
Aksa
Asian 68%
White 13%
Lettings by Household Type
Singles/couples (<60 years) 59%
White 92%
Older Households (60+ years) 13%
Families with children 28%
Black 19%
BME 8%
Properties vacant available to let at year end: Properties vacant not available to let at year end:
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New properties for rent built in the year:
38
Properties acquired and refurbished for rent:
19
Properties improved in the year with new:
Empty Properties
Void rate:
Investment
231 6
1.58% of all stock
Rewires
718
Kitchens
1287
Bathrooms
1125
Heating Installations
855
Windows
788
Doors
788
Roofs
183
External painting
2998
Investment continued
Tenant Satisfaction - New Charter Tenants satisfied with New Charter as their landlord
91.7%
Tenants satisfied with opportunities for participation in management and decision making
85.6%
Tenant satisfaction with New Charter repairs and maintenance
85.5%
* Based on a survey of 1000 tenants undertaken in January 2008
Tenant Satisfaction - Aksa Tenants satisfied with Aksa as their landlord Tenants satisfied with opportunities for participation in management and decision making
Where we invested
86.67% 89.4%
ÂŁ'000 Improvements Cyclical maintenance Responsive maintenance and void properties
14,561 961 9,980
New Building
10,764
Environmental
4,614
Total
Tenant satisfaction with Aksa repairs and maintenance
70.1%
* Based on a survey of 250 tenants undertaken in January 2008
ÂŁ40,880
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Our performance in 2007/8 Property Sales
continued
Other Services - Housing Options
51
Properties sold in the Year under the Right to Buy/Acquire:
New Charter provides a complete housing advice and homelessness service for the Tameside area. It had 4322 visitors in 2007/8. The emphasis is on homelessness prevention.
Employees Advice cases worked on in the year:
The three RSLs employ 510 staff.
Ethnicity
White 466 Asian 33
2466
Of which became homeless applications:
158
Number of applications accepted as homeless and in priority need:
145
Homeless cases prevented for at least 6 months:
303
Black 4 Other 7
Households temporarily accommodated in the year: Gender Female 279
Male 231
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Women's Refuge:
42
New Charter accommodation:
99
Bed and Breakfast:
30
Financial highlights PRTB sales generating £2.7m
(2006/07: £5.3m)
Capitalised major works of £4.6m
(2006/07: £4.3m)
Rent losses from voids decreased by 14.46%
(2006/07: 7.15%)
Group Income and Expenditure account
Group Balance Sheet
for the year ended 31st March 2008
at 31st March 2008 £'000
Turnover Maintenance, management and other administration costs
(rent collected) (cost of providing our services)
Operating deficit Surplus on sale of properties
(PRTB and RTA sales)
Deficit for the year
What we own Value of investment in our housing stock Cost of the investment in our offices, IT etc
60,337 -1,119
Surplus on ordinary activities before interest and taxation Net interest and tax payable
59,218
£'000
Cash in hand and money we are owed less bills not paid at year end
338,629 12,852 351,481
-745
1,650 Net wealth (assets)
350,736
How we fund our investment Borrowing from our loan facility
239,150
531 (interest charges we pay on our borrowings)
-16,329 Other long term creditors
15,134
Accumulated reserves
96,452
-15,798
Total funding
350,736
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Board of directors 2007-08 (A = Aksa; B=Building; N=North; S=South; T=Trust) Alan Alcock Asghar Ali
(N)
Julie Hardman
(B, S, T)
(A resigned 6/11/07)
Jed Hassid
(T)
(N)
Ken Heap
(A from 15/01/08)
Maria Bailey Alaha Begum
(S co-opted)
Joe Oliver
(A)
Abdul Quayum
(A)
Kieran Quinn
(B)
Geoffrey Howarth
(B)
Habibar Rahman
Tony Berry
(S)
Sajjad Hussain
(A)
Vincent Ricci
Andrew Broadhurst
(N)
Nasir Ilyas
(A)
Joan Ryan
(S)
Malcolm Burbridge
(S)
Desmond Jeffery
(T)
Anjam Shahzad
(A)
James Burns
(T)
Aslam Khan
(A)
Wizarat J Siddiqi
(A)
Rex Charlton
(N)
Nasim Ullah Khan
(A)
Anne Simmonite
(S)
Gerald Cooney
(T)
Kevin Kirtland (N resigned 3/01/08)
Helen Smith
(A)
Liliane Laine-Slater
(B)
Philip Smith
Elaine Davies
(A from 23/09/07)
French Ceci est notre rapport annuel pour la dernière année fiscale. Nous ne disposons pas d'un exemplaire traduit mais nous pouvons vous aider à en comprendre le contenu. Vous pouvez demander à un ami ou un parent de nous téléphoner au 0161 331 2131, ou alors si vous indiquez quelle langue vous parlez, nous demanderons les services d'un interprète pour vous aider.
(A) (B, S, T)
Portuguese Este é o mais recente Relatório Financeiro Anual. Nós não fornecemos cópias traduzidas, mas podemos ajudar-lhe a entender o conteúdo. Você pode pedir a um amigo ou familiar que nos contacte no telefone 0161 331 2131, ou pode nos informar qual e sua língua pra que possamos providenciar um intérprete.
Polish
To jest nasz Raport Roczny za ostatni rok finansowy. Nie zapewniamy przetłumaczonego egzemplarza, ale możemy pomóc w zrozumieniu jego zawartości. Możesz poprosić znajomego lub kogoś z rodziny, aby zadzwonił do nas pod numer 0161 331 2131, lub jeśli powiesz nam w jakim języku mówisz, zaaranżujemy tłumacza.
Bangladeshi
(N,T)
Margaret Downs
(S)
Geoff Loughlin
(S)
Andy Stafford
(B)
Jacqui Fendall
(N)
Jacqui McCann
(N)
Gordon Tow
(N,T)
Joseph Fitzpatrick
(S)
Jim Middleton
(N)
Martin Wareing
(S,T)
Hamid Ghafoor
(T)
Ian Munro
(B)
Audrey White
(S)
Stephen Hall
(B)
Iram Nisar
(A)
Ann Whittam
(T)
Gujarati
Urdu
The Boards express their appreciation of the contribution of two directors who stood down during the year Asghar Ali and Kevin Kirtland. In last year's annual report, we noted with sadness the passing of Alan Bezer. Alan, a tenant Director on the North Board, resigned on 15/5/07.
Farsi
Registered office: Cavendish 249, Cavendish Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancs OL6 7AT T 0161 331 2000 • F 0161 331 2001 • E contact@newcharter.co.uk
Issued by New Charter Housing Trust Limited, a company Limited by Guarantee, registered in England and Wales, company number 3807262; registered office: Cavendish 249, Cavendish Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, OL6 7AT
Design: Thinktank Creative 0161 236 6800 Photographs: New Charter, Thinktank Creative and Studio 3000 of Stalybridge