Annual Report to Residents 2011

2010/11REPORT TO RESIDENTS

The standardscover how weshould deal withtenant involve-ment, repairs andmaintenance,rents, quality ofaccommodation,complaints, anti-

social behaviour, value for money and how tosupport our local communities.

The standards require us to agree ‘local offers’with you, to give you a say about how some ofyour services could be tailored and delivered locally. They also require us to produce an annualreport so you can see how good our services are.

We have produced two reports; this summaryand a full version. We would like to know whatyou think of them and you can tell us using thefreepost form on the back page.

We have worked closely with you this year toimprove your services, and you have challengedus where you felt your services were not good

enough. You have helped us to set targets to improve, and you have worked with us to agreeyour local offers. A group of you also agreed thelook and feel of this report and the informationit should contain, including the use of a ‘trafficlight’ system to show how we are performing.We have rated our progress against our own targets for 2010/11. We have also included theHousemark benchmark rate which shows howwe compare to other landlords.

I’d like many more of you to challenge andscrutinise our performance in future so we canbe sure we are providing you with the servicesyou have a right to expect. If you would like toget involved with helping us to improve yourservices in this way, please contact the residentinvolvement team on 01274 717 500 or [email protected].

Claire StoneManaging Director, Accent Foundation

IN 2010, The Tenant Services Authority, (TSA), launched six new housingstandards, drawn up with landlords and tenants from across England.

Meetsthe

standard

Partlymeets thestandard

Does notmeet thestandard

Our traffic light system shows how our performance is rated for the current year;the smaller traffic light shows our performance from last year.

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Tenant Involvement &Empowerment Standard: Pg 4 – 5

Home Standard: Pg 6 – 7

Tenancy Standard: Pg 8 – 9

Neighbourhood & CommunityStandard: Pg 10 – 11

Value for Money Standard: Pg 12

Local Offers: Pg 13

This report is a summaryA full report detailing our performance can befound on our website www.accentgroup.org,under the annual report section of ourpublications page. To comment on this report,please complete the form on the back page.

HOW WE PERFORMED: 2010/11 2009/10 PROGRESS TARGET HOUSEMARK

Satisfied with the service we provide 85% 79% ✓ 84% 84.4%

Complaints closed in target times 39% n/a ✗ 90% 91%

Satisfied with the complaints process 63% n/a ✗ 90% 67%

1 | Tenant Involvement & Empowerment Standard

Customer Service, Choice & Complaints We will offer you choices, information and communication in how we deliver our standards. Our processes will be clear, simple and availableto everyone, and your complaints will be resolved promptly, politelyand fairly.

Arrangements for your involvement and scrutinyYou will be able to co-regulate us by choosing how you want to get involved and influence our policies and services. We will support youif you need help to be more involved.

We will agree local offers for service delivery together. You will beable to influence how we meet all the TSA’s standards, and scrutiniseour performance against them.

What have we improved?When we compare how satisfied you arewith our services overall to other landlords,we are in the top quarter.

We are still not closing all our complaintsquickly enough, but we have increased the number of complaints closed at stage oneto give more of you quicker results, and saveon administration time and costs.

What improvements will we make?We will workwith our residents’complaints forumand staff to increase the number ofcomplaints thatwe close in the target time.

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What have we improved?We hold detailed information for 91% of you.We use it to offer you more personal and improved services, such as helping you to accessbenefits, training and employment, and to setup resident involvement activities.

Our disability forum shares helpful and supportive information with disabled residents,and encourages them to get involved in improving their services.

What improvements will we make?s We will clearly set out how we will use

your information. s We will use your preferred contact

method to talk or write to you once ournew computer system is introduced in February 2012.


Satisfied we listen to you and takeyour views into account 67% 59.3% ✓ 64% 69.8%

Resident board members 33% 33% ✓ 33% 22.2%

What have we improved?We are close to being in thetop 25% of all landlords forhow happy you are that wetake your views into account.

We recruited eight resident inspectors in the Bradford and Yorkshireareas and we set up a repairs forum to checkour repairs performance.

Resident board membersplay a major part in boardmeetings. Last year, they increased the board’s focuson what we spend onplanned maintenance.

Local offersWe have produced local offers of service forall our neighbourhood teams, which will be reviewed every year through the offer of aneighbourhood team meeting.

What improvements will we make?s We will recruit resident inspectors in the

north east and north west.s We will work with the Residents’ Panel to

agree improvements based on the results ofthe 2010 Residents’ Satisfaction Survey.

s We will set up older persons’ forums to lookat services for sheltered housing residents.

Understanding and responding to your needsWe will treat you with fairness and respect and show that weunderstand your individual needs in terms of equality,diversity and support.

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Homes meeting the goverment’sDecent Homes Standard 96% 90% ✓ 95% 98.1%

Satisfied with the quality of your home 83% 77% ✓ 82% 86%

2 | Home Standard

Quality of accommodationIn line with this standard, by December 2010, we made sure your homesmet the Decent Homes Standard or any higher standards that applied.Any local offers we agree will not be less than the standards to which yourhome was built, if these are higher than the Decent Homes Standard.

What have we improved?

PLANNED MAINTENANCE SPEND2010/11 2009/10

£10million £7million

This has paid for 873 new boilers, 412 homesto be re-wired, 331 kitchens, 287 fire risk

assessments, 220 bathrooms, 64 sets of windows and 171 new doors.

What improvements will we make?We have finalised our five year planned maintenance timetable. It will be published onour website before the end of March 2012.

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Gas services completed 99.28% 99% ✗ 100% 99.47%

Happy with our repairs service 80% 68% ✓ 73% 81.4%

Repairs appointments made and kept 86.6% 81% ✗ 90% n/a

*Repairs fixed first time 76.9% 77% ✗ 85% 85.5%

* For first time fixes, we have used our own figures, rather than our contractors, as we thinkthis is the fairest way to report them. Our contractors’ figures would be higher.

Repairs and MaintenanceWe will provide you with a cost-effective repairs and maintenance service, which meets your needs and choices, and health and safety requirements, and aims to get the job done right, first time.

What have we improved?We have added more repair appointment timeslots for you, including mornings, afternoons,early evenings, outside school runs andSaturday mornings.

A new system called Tickle helps to improveour repairs service by letting us send a text message to your mobile phone the day afteryour repair is due to ask if you are happy with it.If you are not, we telephone you back the sameday to find out why, and try to put things right.

We improved our out-of-hours repairs servicewith the appointment of a new contractor offering a better service at a cheaper price.

We have also completed fire risk assessmentsin all blocks of flats where there are shared staircases and corridors.

Our residents’ disability forum helped us to review our aids and adaptations process. As a

result, we doubled our spending to £400,000 ayear and we completed 231 minor adaptationsand 102 major adaptations in 2010/11.

What improvements will we make?Two of our largest contractors now make followup appointments while their engineers are stillat your home.

The best performing landlords report94% first time fixes. This is a top priority forus to improve this year, and we are workingwith our contractors to deal with areas of poor performance.

We will charge penalties to repairs contractorsif they do not attend booked appointments.

Over the next two years, we will deliver a£2 million programme of fire safety upgradingwork. This includes the distribution of over5,700 smoke alarms.

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New residents through choice based lettings 32.4% 8% ✓ n/a n/a

Average time (in days) to re-let homes 35.2 39 ✗ 32 28.8

Happy with our moving in process 97% n/a ✗ 98% n/a

3 | Tenancy Standard

Allocations We will let our homes fairly, openly and efficiently, with your needstaken into account.

We will show you how we make the best use of your homes,keeping to their purpose, and work in partnership with local authorities.We will have clear application and decision making processes.

What have we improved?We use choice based letting schemes in some ofthe areas we work in. We keep our own waitinglists in the areas where we have fewer homes asit offers better value for money.

We joined the Homeswapper scheme in2010. 350 of you registered for a swap andseven swaps took place.

In 2010 we built 222 new homes.

What improvements will we make?s We will publish our lettings policy on our

web site.s We will improve the time it takes us to

re-let our empty homes. s We will continue to increase the number

of homes we let through choice based lettings schemes.

Our rents are set in line with the government’s rent policies. We give you clear informationon how your rents are set each year, and send you a rent statement every three months.

RentsWe will charge rents in accordance with the objectives and frameworkset out in the government’s direction to the TSA of November 2009.

We will provide you with clear information that explains how yourrent and any service charge is set and how it is changed.

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Evictions as a % of tenancies terminated 3% 3% ✓ 3% n/a

TenureWe will offer and issue you the most secure form of tenancy for yourhome. We will meet all statutory and legal requirements relating to theform and use of tenancy agreements. We will develop and provide servicesthat help you to maintain your tenancy and prevent unnecessary evictions.

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What have we improved this year?In Yorkshire, County Durham and East Lancashire, we have set up partnerships withcredit unions to give you more access tofinancial services.

We will help and support those of you onlow incomes and benefits.

What improvements will we make?s We will introduce starter tenancies for all

new residents in 2012. s We will publish our tenancy management

policy. s We will have a new system for carrying out

checks on all our residents. It will help usto spot any problems early and help more vulnerable residents keep their tenancies.

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16p 22p 1p 5p 11p 12p 2p 9p 22p

How every £1of your rent is spent

Your service charges are fixed and reviewed eachyear. You receive a breakdown of your servicecharge at each rent review. Leaseholders andshared owners have variable service charges.We talk to you about major changes in yourservice charges.

Last year, we introduced direct debit – 10% ofyou have chosen to pay your rent in this way.We hope to increase this to 20% in 2011/12.

What improvements will we make?We will talk to you more about how we set ourservice charges to provide you with better valuefor money services.


Happy with your neighbourhoodas a place to live 83% 77% ✓ 82% 80%

Happy with your estate services 78.5% n/a ✗ 90% n/a

4 | Neighbourhood & Community Standard

Neighbourhood management We will keep our neighbourhoods and communal areas clean and safe.

Where it benefits us all, we will work in partnership with you,other landlords and public agencies.

Local area co-operation We will co-operate with our relevant partners to help promote social, environmental and economic well being in the areas where weown homes.

What havewe improved?We haveproduced a detailed estate management policy which setsout what ourscheme standards

are, how we inspect them, and how we involveyou in managing your neighbourhoods.

We launched the new style staff on site daysand monthly scheme standards inspections to

make sure we manage our estates properlyand keep standards high.

What improvements will we make?We have talked to you through our yearlyscheme surveys to find out what your prioritiesare and agreed local offers of service with you.We will report back to you in March each yearto say how we have performed against them,and offer you the chance to meet with staffto agree the next year’s priorities.

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Whathave we improved?Our new anti-social behaviourpolicy will helpus to tackle anti-social behaviourquickly. The needsof victims and

the impact on the local community will be a priority.

We introduced a new service so you can reportanti-social behaviour whenour offices are closed.

Top performing landlords achieve 87% satisfaction with anti-social behaviour case handling. We are contacting residents after wehave dealt with their case, to ask them aboutour service to help to improve satisfaction.

What improvements will we make?s We will train our staff on the new anti-social

behaviour policy and how to deliver a higherquality service to you.

s We will improve your satisfaction with howwe deal with cases through regular personalcontact and follow up phone calls.

s We will publish our new policy and the details of our service standards and supportfor victims of anti-social behaviour.

Anti-social behaviourWe will work in partnership with other public agencies to preventand tackle anti-social behaviour in the neighbourhoods wherewe own homes.

What have we improved?As part of our local offers, we have set outhow we work with our local partners in yourneighbourhoods. We provide information onthe local agencies we work with, and thosewe plan to work with, to make improvementsto your services in the coming year.

What improvements will we make?We will produce a statement that sets out whichlocal council areas we work in and what our roleis in each one. We will provide examples of howwe are working with them and other agenciesto help meet your needs in the areas where wehave a considerable number of homes.


Satisfaction with handling anti-socialbehaviour cases 71% n/a ✗ 83% 71%

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5 | Value for Money Standard

Value for money In meeting all TSA standards, including local offers, we must manageour business to provide you with quality homes and services thatgive value for money.

What have we improved?Spending money on planned repairs and maintenance offers better value for moneythan spending on unplanned repairs. 69% ofour maintenance was planned. Our target was70%. Our figures are better than some of thetop performing landlords, who report that60% of their repairs are planned and 40%are unplanned.

Two thirds of you think that repairs and maintenance is a priority, and half of you thinkthat improving homes is a priority. For thisreason, we do not plan to reduce spending onmaintenance. With a budget of £10 million,we spent £3 million more on planned maintenance in 2010, and we plan to spendeven more in 2011, with a budget of £25 million.

s We changed our out-of-hours repairs serviceprovider, and secured a better quality of serviceat £20,000 less than we were paying before.

s We saved £50,000 a year by reviewingthe caretaking and gardening service in Barrow-in-Furness.

s Spending 69% of our budget on plannedmaintenance and 31% of our budget on unplanned repairs has helped us to keep ourcosts down.

What improvements will we make?We have discussed how we can improve thevalue for money of your service charges with ourscrutiny panel. We will publish more informationin our local offers, and make more improvementsin 2011-12.

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6 | Local Offers

Local offers are our commitment to you for the next year. They tell youwhat you can expect from your neighbourhood team, how we will deal withyour local priorities and what the planned maintenance proposals are for thenext five years. Our service standards are set out in our leaflets, and will be included in our new tenancy handbook in Spring 2012.

Our offers are documents in which we set outour promises about what we will do in the next12 months to respond to your local priorities.Once a year, in March, we will report to youabout how well we have performed againstyour local offer, and offer you a meeting so wecan agree your priorities for the coming yearwith you.

In the future, we will try to link local offerswith neighbourhood forums. We have been testing this with the Barrow Area Tenants’ Forumand we know it works. In 2011-12, we hopeto set up more neighbourhood forums, butthat will depend on whether you are willingto get involved with them.

If you would like to get involved with helpingus to improve your services, please contact theresident involvement team on 01274 717 500or email [email protected] can help to improve services for yourselfand all residents.

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Some descriptions of terms used in our report…

Choice based lettings schemescouncil schemes which social landlordssign up to.

Co-regulationwhen you get involved to help regulateour business.

Customer profile or informationthe information we securely and confidentiallyhold about you.

Decent Homes Standardthe government’s minimum standardsfor warmth, comfort and safety that allhomes in the country had to reachbefore December 2010.

Fire risk assessmentsassessing the risks of fires in the communal(or shared areas) of our properties and puttingplans in place for if they happen.

Forumsgroups of residents who look at our servicesand try to improve them for all residents, locally(Barrow Area Tenants’ Forum) and nationally(the Disability Group).

Homeswappera national home swapping internet schemewhich is free to residents.

Housemark Benchmarkwe compare our performance to other similarlandlords. The benchmark is the nationalaverage score.

Local offers (or standards)local agreements for services we have madewith you based on your priorities. For example,gardening or cleaning contracts or neighbour-hood services.

Planned maintenancemajor repairs and improvements needed to yourhomes that we know of and plan to do.

Residents’ Panela group of residents who look at the services weprovide at a higher level to benefit all residentsacross Accent Foundation.

Standardsthe six housing standards set by the TenantServices Authority in April 2010 that all housingassociations and registered landlords must deliver their services to.

Tenant Services Authorityone of the national agencies that regulates housing associations and registered landlords.(This agency is due to be replaced).

Unplanned repairsroutine repairs you ask for, such asrepairing leaks.

85% of our residentsare satisfied with their services

ACCENT FOUNDATION LTDJeremy Downs House s Senior Way s Bradford s BD5 0QB s www.accentfoundation.org

ANNUAL REPORT 2010/11:For translation, Braille, large print or audio,please ring the resident involvement teamon 01274 717 500.

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Annual Report to Residents 2011

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