How are we doing?

In April 2023, the Regulator of Social Housing introduced Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSMs), these form part of a new system to show customers how landlords are performing. There are 22 measures, and the data is collected through management information and a rolling monthly telephone customer survey undertaken on our behalf by an independent company. They cover a wide range of topics from repairs, building safety and quality, respect, and engagement with customers, how we handle complaints and how to manage our neighbourhoods. You can read the full list of TSMs here.  

This gives us and our customers a comprehensive overview of how we are doing. In 2023/24 we had 1147 responses to our surveys, 1026 from our low-cost rental accommodation and 121 from our low-cost home ownership.   We reviewed the survey results and customer comments each month to understand what is important to you and help shape our services. 

Our approach

From the requirements from the Regulator of Social Housing our low cost rental accommodation survey responses needed to meet a set of defined criteria. For the satisfaction-related questions, we outsource a rolling monthly survey to Kwest Research. We use a statistically valid sampling approach, so from our 5,634 low-cost rental accommodation homes, and to achieve a minimum overall accuracy of +/- 4% at a 95% confidence interval, we needed to complete a minimum of 552 surveys. The margin of error means the degree of uncertainty that the survey results may have and a confident interval means how much the survey results change compared to if all residents were surveyed. The lower the margin of error and the closer to 100% for the confidence interval will give a more accurate picture of the perception of all residents.         

We completed 1026 surveys between April 2023 and March 2024, all completed by telephone, giving a margin of error of 2.8%. As part of the sampling we used representative methods for age group, local authority area and stock type, due to monitoring from Kwest of these characteristics no weighting has been applied to the results.

From the population 180 customers were excluded under exceptional circumstances as they were previously asked never to be included in satisfaction surveys. 

Overall satisfaction

To improve our services in  2023/24 we have:

• Worked with our repairs and maintenance contractors to improve service standards and brought in new contractors where performance was not improving. As a result, we expect to see higher levels of customer satisfaction in 2024/25.
• Invested in the skills, knowledge and ways of working of our people so they are better equipped to provide great service.
• Updated information on the condition of our residents' homes and investment in new technology will help make sure the right investment is made at the right time in the right homes and that they are safe and well-maintained.
• Took steps to join another larger housing provider to increase capacity to invest in our residents' homes. Our merger with Places for People was completed in April 2024 and we are working to accelerate the additional investment promised.
• We compare our performance via Housemark, which shows our year-end position compared to our London benchmark to be in the top quartile, but we want to do better. We will continue to work to respond to resident feedback in improving our services.

Maintaining building safety

Landlord health and safety compliance and the safety of residents continue to be one of our top priorities. Throughout the year, our compliance performance was good and we successfully delivered above 98% across key areas of compliance. We brought in two new compliance contractors with enhanced service level expectations in the new contracts. Both providers are performing well. Our priorities for this year are to support customers, reduce incidents of no access and improve the performance of our repairs.    

To improve building safety, residents fed back that we need to address ASB from drug dealing /gangs and rough sleepers entering blocks and secure main entrances which are often vandalised. In response through the neighbourhood improvement fund, we have funded the upgrading or replacement of communal doors, gates, and CCTV to help address security and safety concerns and will continue to work with residents and external agencies in these areas. Senior-level meetings have taken place with the Police and Local Authorities to push for better collaboration to tackle these issues. A significant programme of main entrance door replacements will also be delivered this year, prioritising schemes with known issues.

Keeping properties in good repair

In 2023/24 we carried out an extensive update of information on the condition of our residents' homes and 71% of homes have now been surveyed in the last 5 years. We will continue with surveys to aim to achieve 80% in 2024/25  The surveys identified a number of homes that did not meet the Decent Homes standard, and at the end of March 2024, 199 homes did not meet the standard. A comprehensive remediation plan was introduced and at the end of May 2024, the number of non-decent homes had reduced to 112 (1.99% of social and affordable rent homes). We will fix all identified non-decent homes as soon as practically possible this financial year.   

For our Gilmartins contract (which covers about two-thirds of our day-to-day repairs) our response targets are Emergencies 2 hours or 24 hours( urgent) and 10 days for non-emergencies. Their performance was 95.2% of emergencies and 93.8% non-emergencies completed in target.

For other contractors, response times for emergencies are 4 hours (gas) and 24  hours and non-emergencies range from 7 to 28 days. Performance for these contractors was 65.3% of emergencies and 78.5% of non-emergencies completed in the target. 

Our improvement efforts are focused on:

• Working with Gilmartins as well as specialist contractors to reduce overdue work-in-progress and improve communication with residents, especially for repairs taking longer than they should and communal area issues such as building security.
• Enhancing our management of damp and mould by raising awareness on how to report cases and acting effectively to fix the issue.
• Continuing our stock condition survey and analysis to develop a forward investment programme so that it can be shared with residents.

Effective handling of complaints

We encourage residents to get in touch when things go wrong so that we can fix the issue and learn from mistakes. The main reasons for customer complaints last year were repair delays, property condition, lack of communication, missed contractor appointments and staff attitude.

To address these, we are learning lessons from complaints and working with contractors and our managers to improve communication between teams and with residents and increase focus on solutions. 

We recognise the need to improve customers' perceptions of our complaint handling. While we perform well in responding to complaints within the Code timeframes, we are working to create a more positive overall experience for our residents.

Respectful and helpful engagement

Our improvement efforts are focused on:

• Monitoring open enquiries to ensure timely responses according to our service standards.
• Enhancing first-contact resolution and call handling in the customer contact centre.

• Working with Gilmartins and specialist contractors to complete repairs and improve communication on complex repairs.
• Improving the skills and knowledge of Neighbourhood Managers and ensuring they receive support from other teams to resolve issues for residents.
• Being proactive with building-wide communications when issues arise which affect all residents.
• Quarterly neighbourhood walkabouts with the Neighbourhood Manager so that local issues can be discussed and addressed.
• Enhanced supervision and support of estate staff.

Responsible neighbourhood management

Residents expressing dissatisfaction have told us that this is due to the condition of their estate, window cleaning quality and frequency,  unauthorized access to communal areas and security issues associated with area-based antisocial behaviour (ASB).

To address these concerns, we have used the Neighbourhood Improvement Fund to replace and upgrade communal doors, gates, and CCTV. We continue to work with residents and other agencies on these issues. We served notice on our window cleaning contractor due to poor performance/complaints and accelerated the process to find a new one.  We changed the working hours of our caretakers from 6am to 2pm to 8am - 4pm from  January 2024 to improve visibility and responsiveness.

We are focused on improving our management of ASB and reports of rough sleepers, taking swift action when needed. We have  met with senior officers in the Police and local authorities to discuss these issues and enhance multi-agency collaboration.

* low-cost rental accommodation (LCRA)
* low-cost home ownership accommodation (LCHO)