The right home
In this review, you’ve seen that over the last year we’ve
invested more than ever into making sure your home
works for you. We’ve found that the best results in
achieving high levels of trust in home maintenance are
when the work is done by our own engineering teams.
Our focus over the next few years is to use contractors
less and to bring more of our services in-house.
In the coming year our in-house gas team are planning to
carry out more than 2,000 gas heati ng system upgrades
to your homes at an investment of £4million. The team
has only been in operati on for two years and they have
already saved us in the region of £700,000.
The team are also there to make sure you really know
how to get the best from your heati ng system, and
they’ll also do some basic checks of typical routi ne
repairs whilst in the home - things like sorti ng leaking
overfl ows, dripping taps and highlighti ng any of your
concerns. This is something we hope more of you will
see happening in the coming months.
We’ve identi fi ed 479 homes that fall below energy
rati ng D and we plan to put this right with planned
improvements to the heati ng, insulati on and windows
due to take place over the next 12 months.
Increasing the supply of the right
kind of homes
We plan to deliver more than 5,300 new homes over the
next fi ve years with the majority (74%) of these being for
aff ordable rent or shared ownership. This new plan sees
us concentrati ng more of our eff orts on fi nding land to
build homes on ourselves – so we’ll be genuinely adding
to the number of homes being built in the areas where
you need them most.
Despite the conti nued uncertainty around the proposed
Local Housing Allowance (LHA) cap that threatens to
make supported housing untenable, we conti nue to push
on with plans to build more specialist MyPlace schemes.
MyPlace off ers a home for people with learning or
physical disabiliti es, or those living with a mental health
diagnosis, and we have acquired a further six sites to add
to our growing portf olio of these much needed homes.
2point0
All of this work is happening alongside a major business
transformati on programme that is due to last for around
the next fi ve years. We recognise that some of our
systems and processes get in the way of making things
easy for you when you’re dealing with us. So we’ve
taken the decision to take a step back and look at all the
diff erent parts of our business and the challenges they
face… and to try and put them all right.
Things
like
making
rent
payments
and reporti ng and
tracking repairs online
will become much easier and far more convenient for
you. The changes should also help to minimise human
error, replace some of the clunky processes that annoy
colleagues and customers alike and, most importantly,
allow us to spend more ti me with you, either on the
phone or face-to-face.
We’ll keep you up-to-date with any changes as we move
through this process and, as always, we’ll be looking to
hear your thoughts and ideas on the work we’re doing
so please keep an eye out for how you can get involved.
Finally, as always, we will conti nue to develop and
improve services over the next year – but we can only
do this with your help. It’s only through your
involvement and feedback that we can understand
what’s really important to you and what is and isn’t
working. So I would urge you to get in touch and share
your thoughts – take a look on page 20 for all the ways
you can contact us.
We’ll keep you in touch with how things are developing
over the year through the news hub on our website and
you can also track how we’re performing for you over
the next 12 months on the feedback area of our website,
which you can fi nd here
I’d just like to say how much we value and appreciate
all of your comments and feedback and look forward to
hearing from more of you than ever in the coming year.
All the best,
CUSTOMER ANNUAL REVIEW 2017
23