FEEDBA CK
HOW CAN WE HELP?
Guidance & assistance to access utility support
Budgeting support
Help with benefit applications
Help to understand your entitlements
Identify and assist with charitable grants
Advocacy to assist with DWP disputes
Represent you at Tribunals
Assist with disability benefits
Benefit checks for any change in circumstances
DURING 2022-2023
£981,747 in financial gains were secured. 375 tenants accessed this service.
“Very happy with the way I was guided through my claim and kept in touch with on its progress. Gold star!”
“Extremely helpful and knowledgeable. Friendly and approachable.”
“Team deserves Gold Star status they are very talented people.”
“If it were not for the team we don't know how we would have coped. Very prompt in returning calls or making visits.”
“Lovely person to deal with. A magnificent asset to the business.”
“Service was first class. Very helpful. Thank you.”
“I was unaware of the benefits and help available to me. Money Advice helped me through that.”
“Visited my home. Very friendly, efficient, and helped me a lot to get what I was entitled to.”
“I am financially better off after being advised I would be entitled to Universal Credit”.
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GETTING GOOD VALUE FROM RENTS AND SERVICE CHARGES
OUTCOMES 14 AND 15. Rents and Service Charges. Social landlords set rents and service charges in consultation with their tenants and other customers so that: a balance is struck between the level of services provided, the cost of services, and how far current and prospective tenants and service users can afford them and tenants get clear information on how rent and other money is spent, including details of any individual items of expenditure above thresholds agreed between landlords and tenants.
KEEPING RENT ARREARS LOW
We are extremely fortunate that our arrears continue to remain lower than the Scottish average year on year.
Our Housing Management team work closely with our tenants to ensure that anyone who is facing financial struggles has access to our Money Advice Service who will ensure that their income is fully maximised. In addition, we are always looking at external funding opportunities that we can tap into to further support our tenants through these challenging times. Having low arrears means that we are able to maximise rental income investment into our properties.
Percentage average weekly rent increase to be applied in the new reporting year
1.5%
4.5% 2023-2024 5.0%
2021-2022
2022-2023
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RENT LOST
0.5% of our rental income was lost due to properties being empty in the reporting year. We are below the Scottish average (1.4%) for the third year in a row. Working alongside our maintenance contractors we get our properties ready to re-let as soon as we can to ensure minimum rent loss whilst ensuring that our properties meet our letting standards and regulatory requirements.
VALUE FOR MONEY
We aim for real value for money in all of our activities. This supports further investment in high quality services to our tenants and the resources needed to provide more affordable homes for local people in the communities we serve. Increasing numbers of tenants are using our “tenant portal”, My Home, to pay their rent or to report repairs. Tenants can even upload photos of the repairs they are reporting. We have had great feedback about how easy it is to use My Home and also how convenient it is for tenants. When it comes to finances we take a long term approach. Our plans look decades into the future to ensure we are able to respond to new challenges, while still giving value for money today.
HOW EVERY IS ACCOUNTED FOR
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Our re-let times at 24.1 days are less than the Scottish average of 55.6 days however we haven’t hit our target this year of 16 days to relet. We have reviewed our void policy and procedures to improve efficiency which we are hopeful will see an improvement in our re-let times.
Outcome 10: Social landlords ensure that people looking for housing find it easy to apply for the widest choice of social housing available and get the information they need on how the landlord allocates homes and on their prospect of being housed.
NEIGHBOURHOOD AND COMMUNITY
Outcome 6: Estate management, anti-social behaviour, neighbour nuisance and tenancy disputes. Social landlords, working in partnership with other agencies, help to ensure as far as reasonably possible that tenants and other customers live in well-maintained neighbourhoods where they feel safe.
We hope that all our tenants can live happily in their homes without being affected by anti-social behaviour. If this occurs we aim to respond within specific timescales. Anti-social behaviour complaints cover a variety of issues. The vast majority of these are resolved during the reporting period. However, sometimes due to the nature of the behaviour and relationships between neighbours it can be difficult to resolve them by a set time. Sometimes, a lengthy period of monitoring and management may be needed before the case can be “closed”. We received 273 complaints about neighbourhood matters during the year and resolved 262 (95.9%) within the target.
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TENANCY SUSTAINMENT
OUTCOME 11. Social landlords ensure that tenants get the information they need on how to obtain support to remain in their home; and ensure suitable support is available, including services provided directly by the landlord and by other organisations.
Tenants who remained in their tenancy for more than 1 year. We are pleased to report that 92.8% of our new tenants remained in their tenancies for at least 12 months. This slightly exceeds our target of 90%. We hope this reflects the high levels of satisfaction that our tenants have with their tenancies and with the services we provide. We review the reasons why tenancies are ended to see if there are any lessons we could learn or actions we could have taken which might have helped avoid someone giving up their tenancy. We also try and provide advice and support to help tenants maintain their tenancies. In most cases, however, individual’s circumstances change which results in their need to give up their tenancy and move to other accommodation.
“Care and attention every step of the way”
“Excellent from start to finish”
“Got the house I wanted”
“I felt they actually listened to me”
“Brilliant, 5 stars”
“Very helpful couldn't do enough for me”
HANDLING COMPLAINTS
The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) issues guidelines on how we should respond to complaints. For straightforward complaints, a response should be sent within 5 working days and within 20 working days for more involved complaints. We received 98 complaints during the year, 15 of which were more involved and we responded to all of these within SPSO timescales. We are continuing to review our complaints handling procedures to ensure they meet the SPSO requirements and provide an effective means of monitoring and improving, if required, our standards of service and levels of tenant satisfaction
NEW TENANT FEEDBACK
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HOUSING QUALITY AND MAINTENANCE
OUTCOME 5. Repairs, maintenance and improvements. Social landlords manage their business so that tenants’ homes are well maintained, with repairs and improvements carried out when required, and tenants are given reasonable choices about when work is done.
EMERGENCY REPAIRS
We set ourselves a challenging target to complete emergency jobs within 4 hours. During the year we completed 1,897 emergency repairs. It took us on average 8.8 hours to complete these, which is a slight drop on last year’s performance (7.6 hours). We are working with our contractors to improve performance, with a focus on good communication and reporting, including having regular contract management meetings.
NON-EMERGENCY REPAIRS
We understand the importance of delivering a good service and have always given a high priority to repairs. We continue to work closely with our contractors to get jobs done as quickly and efficiently as possible. We have seen an improvement in these figures since last year’s charter and we will continue to work with contractors to continually improve this service.
Our target is to complete non-emergency repairs within 6 days. On average it took us 9.3 days to complete 3,606 jobs which were raised during the year. This is slightly above the Scottish average of 8.6 days.
GAS SAFETY
On 97 occasions we were unable to complete a gas safety check within the 12-month anniversary. We have now updated our processes and recruited a new member of staff to reduce single point of failures. Since making these changes we have not had any further missed services. At 31st March 2023, 100% of our properties had a current gas safety record, this is in line with our target of 100%.
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We know how important it is for repairs to be carried out as quickly as possible.
We have set a target to have 90% of our jobs completed “Right First Time”. We completed 79.4% of our jobs “Right First Time”.
We will continue to work with our contractors to try to improve performance against this target.
Repairs Satisfaction
81.9% of our tenants were satisfied or very satisfied with the repairs service they received. This is below our own target of 90%. We try to check on all expressions of dissatisfaction to see if improvements can be made to our service. We always welcome feedback on how we can do things better. Don’t forget, you can give us feedback on your repair though My Home by clicking on the black speech bubble next to your repair.
How
Repairs Appointments
We know that it is important to complete repairs when it is convenient for you. We have two internal targets for appointments:
To meet 95% of all appointments. During the year 75.7% of repairs appointments were kept.
Appointments to be made for 60% of emergency and non-emergency jobs. During the year 35.1% of these jobs had an appointment.
We are looking at improving the information from contractors regarding appointments that they make directly with tenants who have reported a repair to ensure that we are reporting all appointments being made.
Right First Time
satisfied or dissatisfied were you with the repairs service provided?
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OUTCOME 4. Quality of Housing. Social landlords manage their business so that tenants’ homes, as a minimum, when they are allocated are always clean, tidy and in a good state of repair, meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard (SHQS), and any other building quality standard in place throughout the tenancy; and also meet the relevant Energy Efficiency and Zero Emission Heat Standard.
EESSH aims to improve the energy efficiency of social housing in Scotland. Meeting the standard should reduce household fuel bills as well as contributing to the carbon emission targets.
We are prioritising work to improve the energy efficiency of houses currently at bands E or F, to bring them up to band C. We will endeavour to improve all our properties’ energy ratings through various improvement programmes. In a small number of cases it may not be possible to meet this target. During the year we undertook a cavity wall insulation programme to improve property energy efficiency and also reduce tenants’ fuel bills.
SHQS 64.2% of our stock meets the SHQS. This is lower than the Scottish average of 79.0%. Changes to electrical testing requirements are the cause of our reduced compliance figures. We began a programme of testing in 2022 which significantly improved our compliance from the previous year. Completion of the remaining inspections by early 2024 should mean that our SHQS compliant will be 88.0% when we report again next year.
OUR AGM 6th SEPTEMBER 2023 (a busy night for our Chair!)
A (92 Plus) 2.0% B (81-91) 12.4% C (69-80) 68.2% D (55-68) 16.8% E (39-54) 0.4% F (21-38) 0.1%
Stock by current energy rating.
Competition Winners
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20 Years with Ayrshire Housing
GIVE US YOUR VIEWS
For the chance to win 1 of 5, £50 shopping vouchers fill in and return this survey or complete it online through your MY HOME account by 3rd November 2023.
Was the information we presented in the report clear?
If NO, please tell us why
Were you able to easily compare our performance with other landlords?
If N0, please tell us why
Is there any information we did not provide which you would find helpful?
If YES, please tell us what you would like to see
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Would you like to be consulted on the content and layout of future reports?
Yes No
(If Yes, we may contact you to invite you to take part in a focus group about this report).
Do you have any other comments?
Would you like to be added to our consultation register?
Yes No
(If you tick YES, a member of staff will be in touch with you to discuss how you can become more involved in our work and discuss the areas which would be of interest to you).
NAME: _________________________________________________
ADDRESS: _________________________________________________
11 FOR TAKING THE TIME TO COMPLETE THIS SURVEY
HAVE YOU SIGNED UP TO MY HOME ?
Signing up is quick and easy: Go to www.ayrshirehousing.org.uk, click on and fill in your details (you will need your 6 digit tenancy number). Or give us a call or email myhome@ayrshirehousing.org.uk and we will send you a link to the site. You will need a smartphone or other device with internet access.
Our secure online portal offers access to some of our key services 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. 822 households are now using My Home to pay their rent, report repairs and complete repairs satisfaction surveys, update household details, give us some feedback on our services, upload documents and much more.
Follow us on Twitter: @ayrshirehousing
Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ayrshirehousing
Visit us at: www.ayrshirehousing.org.uk
Contact us through MY HOME
Write to us at 119 Main Street, AYR, KA8 8BX
Call Us on 01292 880120
Text Us on 07860 020 459
British Sign Language (BSL) - Contactscotland-bsl.org/
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