CONTENTS
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Welcome to our annual review 2017/18
Looking after your homes
1
6
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Suffolk Housing is getting stronger
Our performance / Homes we own or manage
2
7
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How your money is spent
Working with you
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Value for money
Where we are heading
4
5
8
9
Welcome to our Annual Review 2017/18 It has been a challenging year for Suffolk Housing. In December, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) found that some of the ways in which we worked were not compliant with the standards it expects, and also noted improvements which could be made across the business. Although we were disappointed with their findings, we understood the RSH’s concerns and took immediate steps to address them. Our first priority was to strengthen our Board and senior leadership team to ensure we had the right calibre of people in place with the appropriate experience to guide Suffolk Housing through this difficult period. Work to further improve capacity and capability continued throughout the year, while we also reviewed the ways in which we work and liaised closely with the RSH to develop a comprehensive plan to address the weaknesses they identified. Progress has been good, and we are on track to deliver all of the improvements
included in the plan. However, we will not become complacent and acknowledge there is still much to do. In particular, we must continue to embed our new ways of working from the Board to the frontline so that we can assure our residents, lenders and the RSH that Suffolk Housing is well-led and delivers safe, high quality services which are based on strong and reliable data. We are proud that our staff have risen to the challenge and embraced the changes we have made without losing focus on our residents or the services we provide for them. My thanks go to each of them for their continued support and enthusiasm. The next 12 months will be vitally important for Suffolk Housing, and will see us work hard to return to RSH compliance. At the same time, we will also focus on setting a clear strategic direction for the future so that we can make sure we are best placed to meet the challenges ahead while continuing to deliver high quality homes and services to our residents.
Carole Taylor-Brown, Suffolk Housing Board Chair Welcome to our annual review | 1
Suffolk Housing is getting Stronger This is an overview of our year 2017/18. Further details are included later in this review.
188 Homes re-let
Carried out community engagement visits at 19 schemes
Reduced complaints from 41 to 31
Launched a new resident magazine The Voice - which was developed by one of our young residents
Collected 100.8% of rent (which includes outstanding arrears)
2 | Suffolk Housing is getting stronger
Reduced anti-social behaviour from 33 cases to 29 cases
Met the decent homes standard across 100% of our properties
Improved engagement by using digital technology to hold virtual East Anglian Residents Speak (EARS) network meetings
Recorded overall customer satisfaction of 84%
Suffolk Housing is getting stronger | 3
How your money is spent How we spend your money is central to everything we do at Suffolk Housing. It is vital for us to manage our finances well so that we can provide high quality homes and services for you and your family.
14p 26p 10p
ÂŁ1
6p 2p
23p
15p 4p
Staff costs
Other management costs
Estate services
Compliance
Maintenance
Capital improvements
Re-investment in new buildings
Interest costs
4 | How your money is spent
Value for money During the year, our income management team have worked closely with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to understand the changes linked with the introduction of Universal Credit. We recognise that the application process for this new credit can be daunting for many people, so have tried to help the process run as smoothly as possible by working hand-in-hand with our residents while they make their claim. As a result, we have reduced outstanding rent arrears from 3.6% of our annual rent in 2016/17 to 2.6% in 2017/18, which exceeded our target of 2.75%.
During 2017/18, we have invested in making our homes safer for our residents. As a result, the headline cost of each of our properties has increased slightly from £2,475 in 2016/17 to £2,769 in 2017/18, which remains below the average of £3,206 for comparable housing associations. Over the next 12 months, we will continue to invest in improving our existing stock, which will see our headline cost increase again in 2018/19.
Overall, our operational performance has been good this year. We are letting new developments efficiently, which means we are helping to find homes for people in housing need while also maximising our income. During the year, it took us an average of 18.8 days to re-let a property compared with 20.6 days in 2016/17. Value for money | 5
Looking after your homes
Key: 2017/18
Your safety is our number one priority, which is why we have invested in improvements over the past years. We have also spent more money on maintenance to make sure they remain nice places to live.
2016/17
Routine maintenance
Kitchen and bathrooms
Windows and doors
Heating
We invested more than £600k in heating during 2016/17, which means our spend during 2017/18 reduced.
Lifts
Compliance
We spent more than £300k this year keeping your homes safe. This included carrying out gas and heating safety checks.
Other planned works
Fly-tipping
6 | Looking after your homes
We spent more than £23k clearing up fly-tipping and cleaning contaminated bins.
Our performance Although more residents are satisfied with the overall services we have provided this year, we will continue to strive to improve further. Number of complaints
Decent homes standard
18
100% 11
31
Number of anti-social behaviour cases reported
Rent collected
100.8%
New hand-overs
89.3
Number of compliments Repairs right first time
100% Satisfaction with lettings / new hand-overs
62%
29
9 Formal complaints upheld
Anti-social behaviour complaints resolved
Overall satisfaction has increased Homes we own or manage During the year we made some changes to the homes we own or manage to put us in a better position to deliver the high quality services you expect. In 2017/18, we purchased 20 additional affordable homes and two shared ownership properties, and sold five affordable homes, 15 supported and 12 social housing properties. As a result, we now own or manage: 2160 General needs
412 Sheltered
75 Supported housing
109 Shared ownership
76 Leasehold
22 Market rent
188 Homes re-let
Our performance / Homes we own or manage | 7
WORKING WITH YOU During the year, we: • Introduced our Performance
and Quality Committee, which is made up of three residents and four Board members. The committee is responsible for monitoring the performance and quality of our services and helps ensure that our residents’ voices are heard at Board-level. • Relaunched our Resident Scrutiny
Panel and elected its members to portfolios so that they can focus on specific areas of work, such as communications, resident inspectors and the work of our contractors.
• Held a Christmas
get-together for residents. • Carried out Word and Excel
training for members of our Resident Scrutiny Panel. • Improved engagement by using
digital technology to hold virtual East Anglian Residents Speak (EARS) network meetings. • Introduced a tenant participation
noticeboard to keep staff updated with the latest initiatives. • Carried out community
engagement visits at 19 of our schemes.
• Attended the 2017 Residents’
Network annual conference alongside two of our residents.
Our new-look residents’ magazine “Over the past five years I’ve been studying for a media studies GCSE and taking a creative and interactive media course at West Suffolk College to develop my own skills and to find my sweet spots in designing, creating and animating to bring my ideas to paper, clay and screen. “I volunteered to help Suffolk Housing design its residents’ magazine ‘The Voice’ to hone my skills. It was a challenge and a privilege as well as a worthwhile experience. I felt that my work was greatly appreciated and would love to come back to do more with Suffolk Housing in the future.” Henry Atkins - resident
8 | Working with you
WHERE WE ARE HEADING Over the coming 12 months, we are planning to make several changes to further improve the services we provide. Carrying out Stock condition surveys
Reshaping our Technical Service Team, including introducing a Duty Office
This will help us understand our stock so that we can make more informed decisions.
This will improve our response to repairs and maintenance.
WORKING WITH OUR CONTRACTORS TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE This will help us improve the way we respond to requests for repairs, as well as resident satisfaction with the repair service.
Introducing a Purchase Ordering System This will help us make sure we are spending your money effectively.
Where we are heading | 9
Suffolk Housing Coppice House 5 Greenwood Court Bury St Edmunds Suffolk IP32 7GY 01284 767224 corporateservices@suffolkhousing.org www.suffolkhousing.org www.facebook.com/suffolkhousing/ @SuffolkHousing