Annual Report to Tenants 2023 / 2024

Contents

• Welcome
• The Safety and Quality Standard
• Transparency, Influence and Accountability
• Tenancy Standard
• Neighbourhood and Community Standard
• Value for Money
• Tenant Satisfaction Measures

Welcome

Welcome to the next Annual Report to Tenants. It has been a big year for Social Housing providers, with new regulation paving the way for changes in how we engage with our tenants. This report will inform you of what we have achieved over the last 12 months and how we have performed in the key areas set out by the Regulator of Social Housing, by the new consumer standards, which were introduced in April 2024. These new standards are:

1. Safety and Quality Homes standard: Ensures homes are decent, safe, and well-maintained.
2. Transparency, Influence and Accountability standard: Requires landlords to be open with residents and treat them fairly and respectfully.
3. Neighbourhood and Community standard: Focuses on the community and neighbourhood aspects.
4. Tenancy standard: Pertains to tenant rights and responsibilities.

This report deals with the 12 months between the beginning of April 2023 and the end of March 2024. From April 2023, we have been required to collect and provide information that supports effective scrutiny by tenants. To reflect this, we have included a section on the Tenant Satisfaction Measures and the ways in which we have enabled tenants to scrutinise our services, and how tenants perceive the quality of our services.

In addition, the Social Housing Regulation Act, received Royal Ascent in July 2023, and the Regulator of Social Housing completed their consultation on its revised Consumer Standards, which came into effect from April 2024. All these new measures are now included as part of this and future Annual Reports to tenants.

The feedback from tenants during the time period of April 2023 and March 2024, as well as the data and information contained in this report, initially shows that tenants are happy with the services being delivered. However, the results also highlight areas where we can improve and develop services. We will continue to move forward and use tenant feedback to influence improvements to services that we provide to tenants.

With that in mind, we hope you find our Annual Report informative and that it gives you a greater insight into the work that we do for the benefit of all our tenants. As well as give you an opportunity to have your voice heard and be involved.

If you have any further questions about the information that is included in our Annual Report, please don’t hesitate to contact us on 0800 590 542 or email us at customer.services@bassetlaw.gov.uk

Cllr Jonathan Slater – Cabinet Member for Housing and Estates

Alison Craig – Head of Housing

The Safety and Quality Standard

The Home Standard includes all the elements of how we maintain your home, from everyday repairs to major improvements, and ensure that your homes are safe and working efficiently.

We own and manage 6,549 properties and over the last 12 months, we have:

Maintaining Your Home

• Carried out a total of 16,826 repairs.
• Completed 98.79 % of all repairs within our timescales.
• Tackled damp and mould through targeted surveys in high-risk homes, provided tenants with more information on how to reduce the causes of damp and mould, and provided our staff with comprehensive to support tenants and identify issues quickly.

Major Home Improvements

To ensure that properties continue to meet the Decent Homes Standard we have invested over £12 million in your homes during 2023/24. We continue to carry out Stock Condition Surveys to understand what future improvements are required.

This work has included:

• Replacing 117 roofs
• Installing 117 new bathrooms
• Replacing 90 kitchens
• Improving 23 properties with new windows
• Continued the major refurbishment of our Independent Living Centres, with the completion of Larwood House, Worksop; and the refurbishment of Westmoreland House in Bircotes nearing completion.
• Starting major estate improvements in Carlton in Lindrick

Over the next 12 months, we will:

• Use our enhanced stock data set to help make decisions about our existing homes and communities and where we can add new homes to our portfolio, across the district.
• Invest a further £5m in ensuring our homes meet the current Decent Homes Standard.
• In line with the Council’s 2040 targets, we will reduce our overall impact on the environment, by continuing to make our homes energy efficient, committing £1.5m of investment to improve our poorest energy performing properties.
• Continue to roll out our Independent Living Refurbishment Programme, investing a further £3.5m in Conway Gardens, Retford.
• Use partnerships to collaborate where we can achieve more together., in particular build on the relationships we have developed with our involved customers, who help shape our delivery outputs, and continue to develop our ‘Social Value’ approach to both get better value for the Bassetlaw Pound and ensure that more of the money spent by the authority stays within and benefits the district.
• Identify and secure additional funding where it is available.
• Be flexible and adapt as the economy, political landscape, and customers priorities change.

Transparency, Influence and Accountability

We are proud to work with our tenants, amplify their voices and value the input they have in our goal to keep improving how we deliver our services for the benefit of all tenants.

Tenants and residents can engage with our Housing Service, in a whole host of ways and various levels of commitment. This starts with staying in touch with our latest news and developments through social media, digital newsletters, and our printed newsletter – In Touch; being a valued part of consultations, surveys, and forums; right through to being an active member of a review group and tenant panel.

Some of the groups you could become involved with include:

• Customer experience panel – A group of tenants who hand pick a number of resolved complaints and scrutinise how they have been dealt with.
• Voices of Bassetlaw – A tenant led group that works in partnership with Bassetlaw District Council for information sharing, consultations, scrutiny groups and workshops.
• Tenant Steering Group – A group of tenants and staff who work together to establish the best approach in tenant engagement and develop engagement opportunities.
• Community Groups / Tenant and Resident Associations (TRAs) – There are a number of groups in the community that you can join. This is a great way to meet new people in your community and have your voice heard.
• Tenant Voice – Be the go-to person for your neighbourhood and have a direct line of communication with the Council to discuss issues and ideas to improve the area where you live.
• Tenant Youth Group – A group just for our young tenants, to get their unique views and opinions on our services and influence how we can improve.
• Unique roles – Roles such as sitting on review boards, recruitment panels and helping to inspect our properties.

At the end of 2023/24, we have more than 13,000 Follows on Facebook, more than 5,500 subscribers to our Digital Housing Newsletter and deliver a printed newsletter to 6,546 homes.

Over the last 12 months, we have: 

• Following the introduction of the new Strategy and Engagement Strategy, we have created a new Strategy and Engagement team providing additional resources to maximise involvement and inclusion and delivery of our exciting new engagement programme which aligns to the new Consumer standards.
• Introduced a new Complaint Improvement Group that includes tenants and the Cabinet Member for Housing with Housing Managers. The Group looks at all aspects of how we handle complaints including the reasons for complaints and dissatisfaction with our services, and how we can identify improvements as a result of complaints.
• We celebrate the co-working achievements that tenants have contributed to working with, contractors and officers from the Property and Development service who actively engage in regeneration, energy efficiency, fire safety and environmental projects with a group of involved tenants.
• Consulted with tenants on both Government Policy changes and Internal policy changes. These include Awaabs Law, Housing Ombudsman Complaints Handling Code, Bassetlaw’s Allocation Policy Review, Review of Fire Safety. We supported the introduction of Metro Store recycling bins on Sandy Lane by providing information in different languages present on the estate.
• Undertaken satisfaction surveys of tenants across a range of our services and identified areas for improvement. Fire evacuation procedure on high rise blocks. We consulted with tenants and leaseholders of Hannah Park View in terms of new balconies, and external improvements to the site. Surveyed tenants at Northwood in Worksop regarding their preferred door entry systems, which will be rolled out to other blocks as part of our improvement plan.
• Created a pool of tenants who will form our new ‘Be Heard from Home’ survey group for people who prefer not to attend meetings or workshops and would like to give feedback from the comfort of their own home.
• We have carried out Service Review workshops gathering lived experiences from our tenants to influence service changes, this year we reviewed the occupancy visit and designed a new form. We held a tenant’s workshop to look at reasonable adjustments to address barriers and improve accessibility to housing services and information provision to tenants.
• We have adapted our approach to engagement to ensure we meet the diversity and demographics of all our customers. We have delivered pop-up engagement sessions in rural locations to capture the voices of our rural non-digital tenants.
• We hold monthly engagement sessions in Independent Living Centres and Family and Children’s Centres, Community centres around Bassetlaw and work with partners and voluntary organisations, providing housing advise to tenants and prospective tenants.
• We hold quarterly Tenant Forum meetings available to all tenants across Bassetlaw, to ensure all our tenants are aware of the new Consumer Standards, Tenant Satisfaction Measures, and services updates. We share information on new services and projects and invite tenant volunteers to work with us to shape service improvement. Transport and level access parking is available, and all our venues are fully accessible.
• Our tenants were included in the recruitment and selection process and have actively made a great contribution to the appointment of housing staff such as the Strategy & Engagement Manager and contractors.
• Working in partnership with our involved tenants group Voices of Bassetlaw, meeting on a monthly basis to give individual tenants an opportunity to receive and share information, ensuring all customers are listened to and have an opportunity to raise issues or queries relating to the Councils Housing Service.
• Our Tenant Liaison Group, comprising tenants and elected members to ensure that tenants are involved at the highest level in scrutinising our housing service and meet on a quarterly basis.

Over the next 12 months, we will:

• Expand our digital offer with a range of digital bitesize training sessions and more online opportunities.
• Continue to develop new engagement groups across the district especially in our more rural settings.
• Set up a young tenants panel to engage with our young people so they can be involved in designing future housing services.
• Review how we can support our tenant groups and improve our offer.
• Develop our scrutiny opportunities, so more tenants can be involved in shaping the services we provide.

Neighbourhood and Community Standard

As well as ensuring that your homes are a safe and comfortable place to live, we work hard improve the appearance and functionality of your neighbourhoods and communities.

As part of this work to improve our estates, we have committed a total of £13.8 million over the next five years to maintain estates and neighbourhoods with programmes that include improving roads, footpaths, parking, fences, and garages.

Over the last 12 months, we have:

• Begun major regeneration work on the Carlton Wimpey Estate that will tackle anti-social behaviour by closing off alleyways and ‘rat-runs,’ install a comprehensive CCTV network that will create more security for residents, and plan for new housing.
• Installed enhanced CCTV and additional fencing to increase security in the Sandy Lane area, Worksop, through a Safer Streets funding application.
• Installed new notice boards in communal areas of flats, to provide advice and guidance to tenants on fire issues and building management.
• Created and implemented a new garden maintenance service that will support tenants based on their age, ability, income and support from friends and relatives.
• Implemented the Council’s new Anti-Social Behaviour Policy, which sets out a clear statement of our approach to tackling ASB, both in relation to housing and public spaces within neighbourhoods.
• Increased the number of completed occupancy visits to 78%. These visits help to identify any issues that tenant’s may be experiencing early and ensure that appropriate advice and support can be provided.
• 57 Healthy Neighbourhood inspections were carried out this year These inspections are carried out in addition to the ad hoc visits by the Neighbourhood Housing Officers. If there are any issues in the area, you live please let us know so we can resolve these at the earliest opportunity. Also let us know if you would like to attend estate inspections.

Over the next 12 months, we will:

• Continue to carry out Healthy Neighbourhood Inspections throughout the district, with 57 planned for 2024/25.
• Consult with residents at The Mews, Worksop, to identify improvements to the appearance and security of the area.
• Work with residents of the Independent Living Schemes to identify environmental improvement works around the schemes.
• Continue to roll out the programme of door entry system replacement to communal blocks of flats.
• Work with residents and local organisations to identify and implement improvements to the environment in Harworth.
• Increase inspections of communal blocks of flats and surrounding areas to ensure any issues are quickly identified and dealt with.

Tenancy Standard

This standard looks at how we allocate our properties and support our tenants. As well as week-to-week turn-around of properties, it includes our Supported Housing Service and our work to help some of our more vulnerable tenants.

The Demand for Housing in Bassetlaw is extremely high, and we have more than 4908 active applicants on our waiting list. From a total housing stock of 6,549, this year we let 361 properties and supported eight mutual exchanges took place.

There were 30 Right to Buy applications completed during the year and in addition there were 24 more properties brought into the housing stock, including 18 in the new Larwood House Independent Living scheme, seven new purchases and six property conversions.

We also completed repair work on 400 empty properties this year, enabling them to be re-let.

As well as finding homes for new tenants, our Adaptations Team helps to improve the lives of our current tenants and enable them to live in their homes safely and independently. Through this work we have completed:

• 40 Self-Referred adaptations, which include grab rails to prevent falls.
• 189 Minor Adaptations any works below £1000 such as half steps, handrails, and drop-down rails.
• 114 Major Adaptations such as level access showers, bedroom and/or bathroom extension or reconfiguration of existing footprint, adapted kitchens, hoisting, specialist equipment and stair lifts.

We converted 35 council bungalows to make them accessible for all, using £200.000 of Better Care Fund monies to make adaptions to council owned bungalows. The scheme has proven to be very successful with 35 Properties having been adapted across the district, with a good mix of locations that offer the best outcomes for providing adapted dwellings to applicants. This project incorporated properties that were in the void process, resulting in a drop in void times. The locations are:

• Ranby - 1
• Harworth - 4
• Worksop - 12 
• Carlton-in-Lindrick - 4
• Retford - 6
• Tuxford - 2 
• Shireoaks - 1 
• Gringley on the Hill - 1 
• East Markham - 1
• Langold - 2

 Over the last 12 months, we have:

• Created a new Housing Solutions Team that will look at people’s holistic and long-term housing needs to ensure that they are supported in their tenancies and do not face the prospect of losing their home.
• We have consulted on and made changes to our Choice Based Lettings and Allocations Policy to ensure that the way in which we allocate housing is fair and that we are housing those with the greatest needs.
• Continued to support a 24/7 – 365 day a year telephone and web-based Tenant Support and Wellbeing Service, which provides counselling and advice on issues such as health and wellbeing, legal, financial, childcare and consumer affairs.
• Supported more than 92 extremely vulnerable tenants to remain in their homes, enjoy better health outcomes and improve their overall standard of living. This has included intensive support to help them maintain their tenancies, provide access to benefits and other financial support.

Over the next 12 months, we will:

• Upgrade our Choice Based Lettings IT system to improve the way in which people can bid for homes, apply for re-housing, and submit supporting information online.
• Achieve Domestic Abuse Housing Alliance (DAHA) accreditation and embed these measures across our services to identify and reduce domestic abuse in our communities.
• Review and improve the way in which mutual exchanges are promoted, advertised and tenants are supported through this process to move home.
• Continue to review and improve how properties coming empty are repaired and re-let to ensure that they are re-occupied as quickly as possible, whilst ensuring they are safe and meet our Lettable Standard.

Value for Money

Every penny that we receive from tenants’ rent helps to fund our Housing Service. The Value for Money Standard looks at how we spend the rent we receive from you, plus funding from other areas.

The Housing Service’s budget for 2023/24 was over £31 million.

During 2023/24 we collected just over £30.7 million in rent, which is 99.4% of the rent and arrears due to be paid to Bassetlaw District Council. Our Rent Arrears for this year were £304,071.

To illustrate how we spend your rent money, we have broken down how each pound in rent that you pay is distributed across the Housing Service.

Area	2022/23	2023/24
Maintaining your home of which	48p	45p
Major Works	18p	17p
Responsive Repairs	30p	28p
Housing and Tenancy Management	19p	18p
Supported Housing and Caretakers	7p	7p
Interest Charges on loans	13p	13p
Contribution to future capital investment / housing services	10p	14p
Other management costs including IT and bad debts	3p	3p
Total	£1	£1

Over the next 12 months we will:

• Continue to identify areas where we can work more efficiently and reduce costs, which we will reinvest in our services to tenants.
• Continue to review external contracts with a view to bringing work back in house where possible to ensure greater value for money.
• Continue to modernise services, utilising technology that will deliver improved services resulting in better value for money.

Tenant Satisfaction Measures

As part of the Government’s Social Housing Regulation Bill, a new set of Tenant Satisfaction Measures were introduced in April 2023.

These satisfaction measures will provide the Regulator of Social Housing with information about our performance and the quality of our services and allow tenants to see clearly how their landlord is performing and hold them to account.

Government has asked us to collect and publish the data on 22 tenant satisfaction measures, covering five main themes. 10 of these will be measured by landlords directly, and 12 by landlords carrying out tenant perception surveys. Thank you again to all those who participated. As it is important for us to understand what we are doing right or wrong, we analyse all of the comments provided and feed them into our action plan for improving services.

The below results are taken from ‘IFF Research,’ who conducted the monthly TSM survey on behalf of Bassetlaw District Council. IFF Research compared the results with other housing providers where they have carried out the survey and have ranked Bassetlaw District Council against these other providers.

The Tenant Perception Measures

Satisfaction Measure	TMS Outcome (%)	Star Survey Outcome	Benchmark Average	Quartile
Overall Satisfaction with Landlord *	85%	83%	66.4%	Top – 80% to 100%
Satisfaction that Home is safe and Secure	90%	90%	76.7%	Top – 80% to 100%
Satisfaction with quality of home *	87%	85%	70.8%	Top – 84% to 100%
Satisfaction with the overall repairs service *	86%	88%	73.1%	Top – 79% to 100%
Satisfaction that Council listens to views and acts on them *	74%	70%	57.2%	Top – 70% to 100%
Satisfaction with how Council deals with Complaints	46%	40%	37.6%	Top percentile
Satisfaction with how the Council makes a positive contribution to your neighbourhood.	80%	N/A	58.6%	Top – 80% to 100%
Satisfaction with approach to handling ASB	75.1%	76%	56.6%	Top – 70%- 100%
Satisfaction with Communal Areas	77.1%	78%	63%	Top - 70% - 100%

Complaints

During 2023/24 we received 140 formal complaints. Of these, 16 complaints were resolved at Stage 2 of the Council’s Formal Complaints Process. There were no complaints referred to the Housing Ombudsman during this year.

We also received 105 compliments about our service provision.

Over the next 12 months, we will:

• Carry out rolling surveys to ensure that we meet the Government’s Tenant Satisfaction Measures. These telephone and email surveys will be carried out on our behalf by IFF Research.
• Review complaints made to the Council about the Housing Service through our Complaint Improvement Group and use this information to improve our services. This is in addition to dealing with complaints in line with the Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.
• Analyse the information gathered through these processes to allow us to continue to improve our services to customers.

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Last Updated on Thursday, November 21, 2024